


Four (Or Five) Reasons for Kidnapping Tony Stark

by scifigrl47



Series: In Which Tony Stark Builds Himself Some Friends (But His Family Was Assigned by Nick Fury) [3]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Author has mental issues, Banter, Gen, Humor, Kidnapping, M/M, Pre-Slash, Tony Stark is a BAMF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-25
Updated: 2012-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-04 08:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 78,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifigrl47/pseuds/scifigrl47
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are four reasons for kidnapping Tony Stark.  Tony's sick of all of them.  Well, there's potentially a fifth, but it's highly unlikely that Captain America will suddenly fulfill THAT fantasy.  Tony's deeply disappointed about that.   </p>
<p>Steve Rogers, as always, is oblivious.   At least, that is, until someone who isn't him kidnaps Tony.  Then he's just pissed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Italiano available: [Quattro (o cinque) ragioni per rapire Tony Stark](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2231805) by [EthicsGradient](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EthicsGradient/pseuds/EthicsGradient)



“Entertain me.”

There was a faint chuckle from the other end of the line. “You woke me up, and you expect me to be entertaining?” Steve Rogers asked. “Even for you, Stark, that shows a distinct lack of class.”

Tony Stark grinned. “First of all, Rogers, I am absolutely lousy with class. Pure class. There is no question as to my classiness, so stop trying to ruin my good name, you will not succeed, and you will only embarrass yourself in the attempt.”

Steve made a noise that may or may not have been a snort of laughter. Tony pushed his advantage without a qualm. 

“Secondly, pull the other one, I know very well that you only sleep about four hours each night and you are currently in the weight room, pounding the hell out of yet another punching bag. Take it easy, champ, I'm sick of buying those things in bulk, it's beginning to put a dent in the household budget.” He paused for a sip of his coffee; it was, sadly, the last sip of his coffee. He had a brief moment of silence, mourning for a truly excellent cappuccino before he pitched it into the nearest trash can. “And if you were asleep, you would've turned your phone off.”

“I do not. What if I'm needed at...” On the other end of the line, Steve paused, and sighed. “Two am. Tony, it's two am.”

“Not where I am!” Tony strolled through the streets, his free hand tucked into the back pocket of his jeans, a crisp blazer over a faded Aerosmith t-shirt and a pair of shoes that cost more than most basic cars. “Which is, after all, all that matters.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” Steve said, and Tony heard him sit down. “How's the conference?”

“I hijacked the keynote speech last night. Had to buy the entire room a drink from the damn cash bar to keep from being stoned to death with flash drives and smart phones,” Tony said, grinning, unrepentant. “Natives all chanting angry equations and sacrificing lab techs to appease wrathful data.”

“I reiterate, classy, Stark, classy.”

“Aw, you're grinning like an idiot right now. I can tell.” Tony tipped his face up, studying the morning sky through his sunglasses. Cloudless and crisp, the blue almost painful, almost like Steve's eyes, and wow, he was a pathetic little fanboy. He gave a mental shrug. Eh, it was fine, Steve took his calls at two am.

That was either a sign of affection, or codependency. Tony wasn't willing to look too closely at it.

“How's everyone?”

“Fine, minor issue in central park yesterday,” Steve said. “You got the report?”

“Yeah.” Tony wandered up the street, wondering if he had time to get himself another coffee before the talk he was supposed to be giving this morning. No damn way he was putting up with a room of sixty plus hostile scientists on hotel coffee. He deserved a final meal before his execution. “Random teleportation portals? What was Richards up to this time?”

“You really have to stop blaming Reed for everything vaguely unusual,” Steve said. “It's not good for inter-team relationships.”

“Oh, so it wasn't him?” Tony said, all saccharine sweetness.

“Well, this time it was, but really, Tony.”

“Really, Steve.” Tony grinned. “So Reed opened up a bunch of portals in the middle of Central Park, and I wasn't even there to explain to him why that's a bad idea. Instead I was here, trying to remain awake while an idiot with a Nobel prize butchered the basic experimental process. This whole being-in-Vienna thing is getting worse by the day.”

“And still, we somehow managed to get through it without you,” Steve said. “It was a minor problem, Reed got them shut down before much came through the portals. A couple of rock monsters of some sort, so Thor had fun. Bruce went back to being Bruce a little sooner than we would've liked. He's got a couple of cracked ribs, but no lasting damage. Your new armor piercing arrows worked well for Clint.”

“I am deeply, deeply disapproving of the note of SURPRISE I am hearing in your voice right now, Steve. Everything I make works well.” And wow, that was the biggest, most baldfaced lie to ever come out of his mouth, and he'd testified in front of the Joint Chiefs. Luckily, Steve was far too polite to call him on that fact, so it'll be fine.

“Tony, do I have to bring up the water arrows?”

Now that was just hitting below the belt.

“You know, I liked you so much better when you were painfully polite and too cowed by my fierce brilliance to backtalk, Cap.”

“I wasn't cowed, I thought someone was playing an elaborate joke on me,” Steve said, and he was laughing, Tony knew he was laughing, but his voice was as calm and professional as ever. “Everyone kept saying, 'This is Tony Stark. He's brilliant,' and I kept thinking, 'Is this an Emperor's New Clothes situation? Am I the only one who sees that this guy talks to himself and blew up a piece of the conference table and once missed the doorway and walked into the wall instead?'” Steve made a humming sound under his breath. “Is that the fella you're talking about?”

Tony was laughing too hard to answer. “First,” he choked out, “first of all, Captain Sassypants, I was talking to Jarvis, who was more interesting than anyone else in the general vicinity at the time, and it wasn't my fault you didn't have an earpiece to hear his responses.”

“You were talking to yourself. Like a drunk hobo.”

“But with a far better wardrobe,” Tony shot back. “And second, I blew up the conference table because Fury insisted that I couldn't engineer my way out of a wet paper bag without Jarvis, and well, I cannot let that pass, that is just not acceptable.”

“Maybe if the result is blowing up the conference table, you should stick to Jarvis' help.”

“Third, I missed the goddamn door one time. ONE time I was so lost in brilliance and, oh, I don't know, designing the goddamn Quinjet in my head like a fuckin' boss that I was six inches off center and kinda sorta brushed up against the door frame.”

“You ran face first into the wall and broke your sunglasses.”

“Why are you so mean? Have you been talking to Pepper? I explained to her that I had to put up with that poison tongue of hers, it was part of the official transfer of power, but that she was not to infect everyone else with her tendency to disrespect me and my utter perfection.”

“Do you listen to the things that come out of your mouth?” Steve asked.

“Not really, no, I have people like you for that.” Tony grinned as Steve's laughter, warm and rich, reached him. He strolled along, waiting for Steve to get himself back under control enough to continue the conversation. Maybe it was childish of him, but he did like making Steve laugh. Too often, he caught the good Captain faking a smile or standing a little too straight, a little too stiff, his eyes empty and sad and edging towards blank numbness.

Which was pretty much Tony's cue to snag him by the front of his shirt and make him do something touristy and stupid and amusing. Which explains why Tony had been to the Statue of Liberty nine times in the past three months, and it had only been animated and/or occupied by mutant space fish four of those times. Mostly it was just Tony wearing a stupid green foam crown and telling any and all foreign tourists outrageous lies while Steve stammered out apologies and fielded calls from Pepper, Coulson, Fury, and whoever was unfortunate enough to be the SHIELD or StarkIndustries press liaison that week.

But when the afternoon was done and they were eating street food from some disgusting cart and naming the pigeons that made sad eyes at them, Steve no longer looked like death warmed over, and that was all that mattered.

“Seriously, Tony,” Steve managed.

“Seriously, Steve, how're my bots?”

“Dummy got put in time out today.”

“Harsh, Mom.” Tony was chuckling. “What'd he do?”

“Clint had him throwing clay targets for practice.”

“Aw, come on, he can handle that. I gave him a whole new set of servos just so he could do it with enough force to challenge Hawkeye.”

“It was more that they were doing it on the roof.”

“Yeah, they shouldn't do that,” Tony said, wincing as he thought of the distance between the top of Stark Tower and the innocent civilians on the street below. “But it sounds more like it's Clint's fault than Dummy's.”

“I let Coulson deal with him. Dummy got out of time out by five. I think Clint's still in an interrogation room somewhere at this point.”

“Excellent choice on your part.” Tony wandered around a corner, nodding at a shopkeeper who was opening for business, broom in hand, apron tied around his wide form. “Speaking of things that Coulson probably didn't appreciate, do you want to explain to me why there was a three page spread in the New York Times about my toaster?”

“You saw that, huh?”

“Yeah, Steve, I saw that, because it was in the New York fucking Times, really, I subscribe? Not because I want to, but it's a requirement, they pretty much just take my money if I want the paper or not, they're like a print press gang but it's okay, online archive is worth it, but I don't get much of a choice about if I want it or not, because, you know, you live in the city, and you run a company, and you're an international jetsetter and playboy philanthropist-”

“You forgot genius.”

“I'm so flattered you brought that up, Steven, thank you, nothing but love today except for when you brought up the water arrows, I cannot believe you'd betray our friendship that way, that was hurtful and wrong.” Tony was almost skipping as he came within a few blocks of the secret little coffee shop he'd discovered in the early morning hours his first day here. Found it in that perfect way, by following the small of perfectly roasted coffee through the damp morning streets. “But I'm magnanimous and will forgive you, because I am focused on the New York Times and the fact that someone put a tiny, tiny hat on my brilliant little toaster and let it be photographed.”

“I thought it was a good photo.”

“It was a photo of a toaster. In a hat. A pink and orange and green winter knit hat. With a pompom on top.” He paused, and reiterated. “A ski hat on a toaster. Which has no problems staying warm, because it's a damn toaster, and doesn't ski, so I'm not sure what is going on there, but when I am glad-handing at an international scientific symposium, I do not need to field questions about the fashion sense of my toaster.”

Yeah, he'd really thought he was drunk when he was struggling to make sense of the head of a major old world university asking him THAT question. Drunk or drugged.

“It was cute. Good PR.”

“Steve, we look like idiots. Seriously, most of the world already thinks we're living in a superhero frat house here, can we not encourage that by letting pictures of household appliances in miniature headgear be published in one of the most respected newspapers left in the world?”

“Apparently not, Tony, because that happened.”

“I noticed.” Tony rolled his eyes, glancing both ways before crossing the street. “Steve? Where did we get a hat to put on the toaster?”

“Bruce was trying to teach Thor to knit and-”

“Stop. There are not words to describe all the ways that that sentence is wrong. No. I can't-” Tony pressed a hand to the muscle twitching beside his eye. “No.”

Steve ignored him. “Bruce was trying to teach Thor to knit, and they decided on a tea cozy he could give his mother-”

“Please stop. Please, Steve.”

“And it didn't go all that well, it was a little lopsided and not mom-present worthy, so Bruce was trying to cheer him up and find something else they could use his work for, and they settled on a hat because it was already the right shape, but it was too small for any of us, even though Thor tried it on.” He paused. “You should be glad we didn't publish THAT picture in the New York times.”

“So. Much. Pain,” Tony gritted out.

“So since Thor loves Calcifer the toaster like a pet, the hat got a pompom and was gifted upon the toaster.”

“How did this become my life?” Tony wondered aloud. “I have advanced the limits of science and technology. There's a course at MIT dedicated to my robotics work. People have written dissertations on me. I am a fucking superhero. I saved the world at least twice, six times if we're counting team efforts, and that one time when everyone else was napping on the job, I saved New York all by myself. I revolutionized flight capability, weapon systems, corporate business practices, and code structure of modern AI attempts. I am Tony Stark, and do you know what it will say on my tombstone, Steve? It will say, 'Here Lies Anthony Stark: One Time, He Made an Awesome Toaster!'”

“Don't be ridiculous, Tony,” Steve said, amused. “It will say, 'Here Lies Anthony Stark: One Time, He Made an Awesome Toaster and He Woke His Friends Up At Two AM To Whine About It!'”

“I hate you so very much.”

“Tony, we don't use words like hate in this house. Hurtful language damages team morale, don't you remember your sensitivity training?” And Steve was laughing at him again, he could tell, he could hear the warmth and humor there in the other man's voice, and it was worth the whole toaster situation to have that. It was even worth the damn SHIELD sensitivity training, and that had been a nightmare. 

He and Barton would still be repeating the class if the instructor hadn't flatly refused to have anything to do with them ever again. Barton, being Barton, had done a fist pump and declared a victory for 'being fucking insensitive.' Tony had declared that, as a consultant, he was never sitting through such obvious corporate bullshit again in his life.

Steve and Coulson had been displeased. But not surprised. 

“I have repressed that training,” Tony explained. “Hate gives me strength.”

“You can hate HYDRA. We're allowed to hate them.”

“Oh, sure, we can hate your arch-nemesis. That's fair.”

“I've had an arch-nemesis longer than you, Tony.”

Tony couldn't hold back a smile. “Fine, Cap, fine. Pull the age card, no worries, old man, we understand, it's hard to make your way in this crazy modern world.”

“It's true. By the way, I need you to reprogram the DVR. Thor requested one too many bridal shows and Coulson asked for far too many reality shows and now it is now just feeding us a steady stream of 'Bridezilla' and 'Say Yes to the Dress,' and Clint says he's going to light it on fire because the only exception it's making is for 'Top Shot,' and you know how crazy that show makes him.”

“Jarvis can do it.”

Steve made a considering, humming noise under his breath. “He could, but I like it when you do it.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “C'mon, Cap, you can do it, I've seen you do it.”

“Sorry, Super Soldier out of time, so confused, do my busy work now, Stark.”

Tony burst out laughing. “You fucking faker, you do this every time you can't be bothered to update your phone's contact list, too.”

“If you're going to mock me, I might as well deserve it.” Steve yawned.

“Go to bed, Cap,” Tony said, as the coffee shop came into view. “I've got a talk to give this morning, so I'm going to go caffinate up.”

“Have you slept at all, Tony?”

“Sleep is for the weak. So is eating. I have scientific establishments to topple.” He pushed the door open and knew, instantly, that something was off. 

The usual girl was behind the counter, neat black hair in braids, purple framed glasses and crisp white button down shirt and black apron. The place was small, little more than a hole in the wall with three indoor tables and two on the sidewalk outside. A jazz soundtrack played, light and airy, over the sound system, and the air was heavy with fresh roast coffee, chai spice, and fragrant pastries. On the surface, everything was fine, the shop was empty and the street outside was deserted.

But the girl was clutching her tea towel in both hands, her fingers white knuckled on the fabric. She gave Tony a smile, but it didn't reach her eyes.

Tony smiled back. Into the phone, he said, “Okay, Pepper, I understand. I know, I know, and I'll be home tomorrow. I love you, darling.”

On the other end of the line, Steve said, “Tony, what's wrong?” because he was never needed to be told twice, he never failed to pick up on a cue, he never, ever missed it when Tony told him, in so many words or not, that something was wrong. That Tony was in trouble. Tony smiled, just a little.

And then Tony cut the connection and turned the phone off with a flick of his thumb before Steve could call him back. Tucking it in his pocket, he ambled up to the counter. “Good morning!” he crowed, and continued in German. “The usual, please, large and black as my soul.”

The girl nodded, but she didn't say a word today, her lips thin and pinched beneath her bright lipstick. Instead, she just bent over the register, ringing up the order.

“Final day in Vienna,” Tony told her, leaning his folded arms on the counter and giving her a wide grin. “You going to miss me?”

She glanced up and her eyes were wet. Her lips moved, but she didn't say anything. “Aw, don't cry,” he said, laughing. Reaching over the counter, he snagged a paper cup and tossed the it in the air, caught it and rolled it between his hands and under his elbow, tossing it around his arm with a magician's pass of his hands. He slapped it down on the counter, his free hand on top, and reached over to grab her marker. Popping the cap with his thumb, he bent over the cup, signing with a flourish. “Here, something to remember me by.”

He held it up in front of her, his hand cradling it from the top, and he'd written, in German, “GET DOWN.” Her eyes shot to his, and he handed her the cup, giving her a faint nod, the barest dip of his chin. She closed her eyes, tears sliding down her cheeks, and folded down, curling into a ball behind the counter.

And Tony barely had time to brace himself.

The blow came from behind, hard and fast, but Tony Stark had been in more bar fights than he cared to remember. He'd been taught boxing by Happy, and grappling by Natasha, and how to fall and roll with it, loose and boneless, by Clint. And he'd sparred, night after hormone inducing night, with Steve, who was bigger and stronger and tougher than any other man on the planet.

Of course, there were six of these guys, all of them big, all of them in black ski masks, so Tony was a little bit outnumbered. 

He was also a little bit pissed. “You know what?” he asked, as he caught a hand and rolled his weight forward, throwing the idiot over his shoulder and into the wall with a bone-shaking thud. Without pause, he slipped into a block and a twist, his eyes snapping over the small shop, marking locations and paths of attack and smashing a glass sugar dispenser into a face without so much as blinking even as he hopped backwards, using a chair to tangle a man's legs and send him sprawling. “I am severely annoyed right now.”

Tony blocked a punch, and it made his whole body rock back with the force of it, and retaliated with a brutal swing of his elbow. The hit connected with the man's nose, and Tony heard something break. Grinning with feral intent, he pivoted on one foot, his leg snapping out to connect with a knee, tossing the man back into one of his buddies. “You really didn't have to traumatize the damn barista. Some things are sacred, and amongst those are cute girls who can make really-” He lashed out with a vicious right and a body blow with his left, a foot sweep and a nasty uppercut. “Fucking.” A foot stomp and a twist, his balled fists smashing into the side of the man's face. “Good COFFEE.”

He swung around, looking for a way out, because winning wasn't possible, he wasn't strong enough, or fast enough, and there were too many of them, no matter how many times he knocked them down, he wasn't going to knock them all out. There was one of him and six of them and the numbers rolled through his head, fast and hard and inescapable, odds and angles and probabilities and force, and all of them made one thing clear: he wasn't going to win this fight.

Tony ducked under a blow, trying to cut wide, to dodge a kick and push around and past two of the men, but a third was there, blocking him back, forcing him towards the counter, the one place he didn't want to be, he needed space and a free path. Every hit they landed, or that he dodged, was whittling away with his ability to cut through and out.

The odds were declining by the moment.

A hit glanced off of his shoulder, the pain sharp and sudden and Tony rolled with it, falling back against the wall. He snagged the stand style table and brought it up, snapping a man's head back as the wood connected with his chin. He swung it around and braced it under his arm and lunged forward, his hand on the reverse of the tabletop. Using it like Steve's shield, he pushed forward, smashing into the attackers. They went down with a crash, and Tony barreled through them.

The hit from behind sent him stumbling, and he crashed to the floor, a heavy body pinning him down, and he twisted, wishing for the first time that he'd slept at some point in the last 48 hours, because he wasn't responding as fast as he should've, he knew that was the case, but exhaustion and sheer number of opponents were wearing him down. He fought the entire way down, fists and feet and everything he could manage, but he felt the needle go into his neck.

And knew his time was numbered. “Oh, I am so fucking SICK of this,” he snarled, and as someone leaned over him, grabbing his arms and pinning them to the ground, he brought his knee up and connected, hard, with some poor bastard's balls. 

He was chortling even as the fist slammed into his face, sending crashing him into the darkness. His last thought was, if he didn't get back from this one, at least he'd told Steve he loved him.

*

Steve tried calling Tony twice. Both times it went directly to voice mail.

At that point, he triggered the general Avengers alarm, leaving the gym at a full run. “Jarvis, give me a general speaker,” he snapped, bare feet slapping against the floor as he ran up the hall. “Avengers, assemble,” he said, all but sliding around the corner. “Tony was just attacked in Vienna. Quinjet, now!”

There was no point in prefacing that with 'I think' or 'might,' it was the reality of the situation. Tony had called him Pepper, said he 'I love you,' disconnected without answering Steve's question, and turned off his phone.

And all of that meant that Tony was in trouble.

He was running full out, as fast as his legs could carry him, and nearly collided with Thor, who was coming from the opposite direction, clutching Mjolnir and carrying his armor and the rest of his clothes under his arm. Clad in boxers and boots, he scowled at Steve, his eyes sparking. “Who would DARE?” he roared.

“Don't know. Yet.” Steve waved him on, and reached the Quinjet hanger doors at the same time as Clint, Coulson tight on his heels and already barking into his SHIELD issued phone. Clint was carrying his long bow in one white knuckled hand, his crossbow slung across his back and two quivers of arrows at the crook of his elbow. He was wearing a pair of flannel pajama pants and a white t-shirt. Coulson was in his pants and shoes, dress shirt unbuttoned on his shoulders and suitjacket thrown over his arm.

“What the fuck?” Clint snapped, and Natasha was there, behind him, then in front of him, her suit already on, her only allowances for the urgency of the situation was the fact that her hair was a tousled mop of curls, and she was yanking her zipper up as she ran, her boots in one hand.

“What have we got, Cap?” Coulson asked, his phone at the ready. 

“Suit up,” Steve said, as Bruce came scrambling through the door, his skin tinted green and his breathing tightly controlled. “We're wheels up in five minutes.” He started rattling off the information that he had to a waiting Coulson, and heading for the case where his uniform was stored. He didn't care, really, if he went out fighting in sweats and a t-shirt, but he needed his shield in his hand right now.

Right now.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Natasha scrambling aboard the Quinjet, starting the take off procedure since she was already set to go. The others were grabbing gear and moving faster than they should, not being careful, and not caring. Clint was stripping in the middle of the hanger, cursing and snarling as he yanked his body armor into place, and Thor was tossing his hammer between his hands now that his armor was on. 

“SHIELD Europe is en route,” Coulson said, buttoning his shirt one handed. “We're waiting on the ETA, SHIELD's pushing through lock on the last transmission from Tony's phone, triangulating the cell signal, there's a tracker in his phone, but they'll ditch that fast, probably strip him to avoid any other attempts at us locating him via those means.”

Clint ran over, dressed except for his boots, offering Coulson a holstered Glock and a pale blue tie. Phil took them both with a nod. “Until we get a contact or are able to get a starting point, we're flying blind, Cap.”

“He was in Vienna. Walking distance from his hotel. Had to have been within a mile or two, he was heading out to get a coffee before his talk this morning.” Steve glanced at his cell phone's display. “His talk's in less than a half hour, and he hadn't forgotten it, he mentioned it, he was on his way back. Start at the hotel and look for coffee. In the meantime, we're wheels up. Now.”

Steve's phone rang, and it was Tony's ringtone. Shocked, he almost dropped it, then fumbled like an idiot as he tried to answer the call. Around the bay, everyone went still. “Steve Rogers,” he snapped out, and on the other side, he could hear someone crying, the sound soft and faintly feminine. “Hello? Miss? Where did you get this phone?”

“I'm sorry,” she said, and she was speaking German. Sobbing harder now, she managed, “I”m sorry, they- They took him.”

Without thinking, Steve switched to German, and his eyes shot up to meet Coulson's. “He was there, and someone came and took him? Miss, are you safe? Are they still there? Where did you get this phone?” he repeated.

“He, he dropped it in a coffee cup and gave it to me, he hid it, he told me to get down and gave me his phone in a cup,” she said, sucking in a breath. “I'm sorry, they came before the shop was open, the shop where I work, they told me to act normal, and if I tried to warn him, they'd kill me. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, they took him.”

“Are they gone?” Steve felt like tearing his hair out. “Quinjet, now,” he snapped out to the team, and they moved, with Coulson falling into place next to Steve, talking hard and fast into his own SHIELD issued phone, his voice clipped and sharp. 

“Yes,” she said. “I couldn't figure out how to turn the phone on, I'm sorry.” Her voice collapsed in another sob. “I'm so sorry, I'm sorry!”

“It'll be fine, he'll be fine,” Steve said, because he had to believe that or he'd go crazy and Coulson was nodding to him, holding up five fingers. He almost strangled on a laugh, of course Coulson spoke German, of course he was aware of every word that was passing Steve's lips. “Miss, there's a tracker in that phone. There are people coming out to find you, they'll be there in five minutes. A lot of them, all in black, with weapons. I need you to move in front of the counter, and keep your hands where they can see them, all right? Just stay calm, they are coming to help you and get as much information as they can. Are you safe right now?”

“Yes,” she said, sounding a little more steady. “He told me to get down, he told me to hide. I hid, and he saved me, and I don't think anyone remembered I was there. He told me to-” Her voice broke. “They injected him with something, and he was so still when they carried him out, but he knew there was something wrong. When he walked in, he knew, and he told me to get down.”

And wasn't that just like Tony. 

For an instant, a fraction of an instant, Steve braced his hand against the wall, letting his head fall forward, letting his back bow under the pressure. An instant of silent, screaming panic, of nightmares that he couldn't blink back, of raw terror unfolding like ice crystals in his chest, numbing him even as it tore him apart. Then he swallowed it all down, bitter and writhing and alive in his tight throat, he swallowed it and ignored the way his stomach roiled and tried to rebel.

An instant, and then he was up and moving, and cursing himself for the lost second.

“Okay, Miss,” he said, his voice steady, calm. “Just hold on a little while longer, and the SHIELD agents will be there to talk to you. They're not going to let anything happen to you, you're safe.”

She was still crying, but it was mostly controlled now. “Please, please save him,” she whispered. “He knew what was going to happen, he knew it, and he saved me anyway. Please. Save him.”

“I will,” Steve promised, and he glanced up at his team, already boarding the Quinjet, armed and primed and determined, furious and determined. “We will.”

“She called the local police,” Coulson explained in an undertone. “We're intercepting them, we need to keep this quiet, controlled, if word gets out, it will be an absolute storm of publicity. Until we know why they snatched him, SHIELD is the only authority here.”

Steve nodded. “I'll make sure we let you know when we find him, miss,” he said, his voice gentle. “Thank you for being brave and calling us.”

“I hit redial,” she whispered. “It was all I could think to do.”

“Thank you,” he said. “We'll get him back.” In the background, he heard the noise of a couple dozen agents, armed and stern faced behind SHIELD issued glasses, storming the small shop. “They're there.”

“Yes,” she said, and she sounded calmer. “Find him.”

“I will. I promise.”

*

Coulson managed to block Fury until they were off the ground, and well across the Atlantic ocean. How, Steve wasn't quite sure, but he was desperately grateful for it. Coulson had put off half a dozen other agents as well as Maria Hill, until the situation had required Fury's direct interference, and even Coulson wasn't hanging up on him. Now, the director was roaring at them over the common comm line speaker, his voice echoing in the small space of the Quinjet.

“I need all of you to haul your asses back to base immediately,” he snapped out, for about the sixth time during the ten minute conversation. “Until we have more information, this is counter productive. You have no idea who did this, where they are, or where they're taking him, and I will not have my team flailing their way across Europe like a bunch of amateurs. Get. Your asses. Back here.”

Steve's hands were fists on his knees. Across the aisle, Clint was assembling and disassembling his bow, calloused fingers tracing the lines and linkages like it was a strand of rosary beads, running through his hands. He rolled his eyes in Steve's direction, his face making it clear what he thought about that.

Thor snorted, arms folded. It was only out of deference to Bruce that he'd agreed to hold Mjolnir still for the course of the flight, but his muscles flexed with barely leashed force. By group agreement, Bruce had put on noise canceling headphones, his eyes closed and his hands palms up on his folded legs. He had too many bad memories associated with screaming military officers; they needed him to stay Bruce until they were on the ground. As usual, Fury wasn't helping with his stress levels.

“All due respect, sir, no,” Steve said. “We'll be on the ground and ready to go once the intel starts coming in. Returning to New York at this point would make our response time unacceptable, especially since we're already well on our way to being wheels down.”

“And if it's a trap?” Fury snarled out.

“Then it's a really stupid one,” Steve said, his voice calm. “I confirmed the Fantastic Four and the X-Men are in New York for the foreseeable future, and updated both groups with the fact that we might not be able to assist them for the next few days. Reed has rescheduled a potentially problematic experiment until after he's sure we're available as backup, and Professor Xavier has recalled a team from that had been checking out a problem in the midwest.”

He might feel useless right now, but Steve understood logistics. He understood the brute force of moving a platoon, of covering fire and troop movements and supply lines. This, at least, he was good at.

“This is a direct order, Captain Rogers, you are flying blind, you have no idea what you're doing, and I want you back here, now.”

Clint's bowstring twanged. “Sir? All due respect? We're going to go looking. We're going to go looking for the building that is ON FIRE. The one that is sliding into the ocean. The one that is missing three walls, a floor and part of a load bearing bathroom stall. The one that is surrounded by angry villagers waving pitchforks and torches and chunks of exploded robots. 

“We're going to look for the warehouse where the bad guys are being mauled by their own machinery, and the evil lair that is melting into a pool of toxic Jell-O. We're going to find the underwater dome filled with angry blenders with self-esteem issues and a thirst for human flesh. The tropical island that now has giant mechanical legs that are carrying it along straight to jail. 

“We'll follow the screams and the smell of homemade napalm and the reports of gigantic coffee purchases, and any and all of that will lead us straight to Tony Stark, because he is a crazy ass son of a bitch who is probably cackling like a maniac right now, and the fucking morons who were dumb enough to snatch him are wailing and regretting that they ever bought a Kurig coffee machine.”

Thor was laughing out loud. “Aye!' he boomed. “I would levy pity on his captors, if they did not deserve all the fury he can mete out upon them.”

“Barton-” Fury growled.

“No, seriously, sir, I would prefer to be stuck in a wet sack with Dr. Doom and half a dozen angry honey badgers than deal with Stark in full on caffeine withdrawal,” Clint said.

“That's a vivid mental picture I did not need, Agent,” Fury snapped.

“I'm a fucking artist, sir. Also, true.” He grinned at Steve. “We will find Tony. With or without your help. Don't you want to be on the winning side for once?”

“I'm going to have you shot one of these days, Barton.”

“I know, sir, that's why I've wheedled my way into the cold-hearted affections of your best agents.” He grinned. “It's purely for protection.”

There was a pause. “Fine,” Fury gritted out. “Go see what you can find out. But I want to hear about anything any everything you find, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” Steve said, shoulders slumping with relief. “Thank you, sir.” It wasn't as if he planned to obey, but not getting shot down by the Helicarrier was also a good thing.

Fury gave a snort. “Coulson, you and I will have a chat about your loyalties when you get back.”

“That's not going to work out all that well for you, sir. Sorry,” Coulson said. 

Thor stood. “The Son of Coul,” he said, his voice very soft and very cold, “is a man of honor and loyalty. It is his loyalty to the Avengers that makes one such as I, so far from home, comfortable here. I pray this not be held against him, or I should be most irate.”

There was a pause while Fury considered that and everyone else looked at Thor. “Understood,” Fury said. “Fury out.”

With a snort, Thor sat back down, arms crossed. Coulson was staring at him, eyebrows raised. “And this,” Clint said with a grin, “is why Thor is everyone's favorite.”

“Verily,” Natasha said from the pilot's seat, a smile evident in her voice.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony Stark knew of four reasons why people wanted to kidnap him. Well, okay, five, but at this point, the villainous scum of the world had only caught on to four. The fifth, and Tony was always waiting for it, because hey, this was how bizarre his life was, was to sell him into some sort of sexual slavery. It hadn't happened yet, but that didn't mean much.

It was also a reoccurring fantasy of his that Captain America saved the world and demanded that Tony sleep with him as his reward. Tony, being the sort of patriotic American that he was, would have no choice but to give in. Enthusiastically. Purely for the good of the American people and the citizens of the world, of course, because that's just the kind of guy Tony was. An dedicated participant of the democratic process, especially when it involved a naked Steve Rogers.

For now, until some villain got wind of Tony's reputation for being a skilled and capable lover, and/or his Captain America fetish, there were four reasons why Tony Stark had been, and would be, kidnapped.

Reason number one was the easiest, the stupidest, and the one that he'd run into the most: simple ransom demand.

Tony was the son of rich and powerful people who may not have really been too attached to their only son, but they were politically aware enough to realize that when someone took their six year old kid, paying money to get him back was pretty much what society expected of them. Most times, and yes, there were enough kidnappings when Tony was a child to make a response 'most times,' the demand was made, the payment was transferred, and Tony was returned, a little more traumatized than the day before.

Once he hit double digits in terms of age, he stopped being traumatized and just started being bored. And when Tony got bored, he got snarky. It was worse when he reached his early teens, not a good age for anyone, but especially not a good age for Tony, his brain too outsized for his gangly limbs and sharp tongue and uncontrolled emotional issues, and he said things and did things that fell somewhere between 'stupid' and 'suicidal,' and he did them with gusto.

Most people were very, very glad to be rid of him. On one remarkable occasion, he'd been released without having the ransom paid and he'd just hitchhiked to the nearest police station with a black eye and a split lip, fury and pain and snarling resentment fueling the trip. The police had not been prepared to deal with him, as they'd never actually been notified of the kidnapping, and when a twelve year old Tony had cold cocked the Sergeant on duty, he'd found himself in a holding cell.

It was a step up from being tied to a chair, but not by much.

Fast forward around a quarter century, and Tony Stark had once again woken up tied to a fucking chair, and the only, only way this would be redeemed was if Steve were to walk in and make kinky demands. Tony didn't estimate that this was going to be the result, but he was frustrated and bored and, if he was being honest with himself and no good came of that nonsense, humiliated.

Because he was used to being kidnapped by a better sort of criminal class. At this point in his life, he was officially a big fish, and that meant AIM or HYDRA or the Kingpin's guys, or even Dr. Doom's gun-toting 'diplomatic corps.' That was what he deserved, in terms of a kidnapping, not this amateur hour nonsense. Really, this was just embarrassing, for both them and him.

It had taken him about five minutes after waking up to realize that he was likely still in Vienna, he was in a fuckin' warehouse, really, what was that, get a hideout, pretend to be a real adult organization if you're gonna kidnap IRON MAN, and he was tied to a wooden chair with ROPE, with oh my God, they were using ROPE, and there was cloth in his mouth, oh, God. Tony shifted his weight and he felt the chair move, and just wanted to bang his head against the wall.

Especially since they hadn't even left a guard. They had left him alone in the room, the normal sort of room, it looked like an abandoned office, and there were things everywhere, there was furniture and glass paned windows overlooking the warehouse floor and holy shit, these guys were just amazingly bad at this, they needed to find another line of work, because they'd left Tony Stark in a room full of stuff, potential weapons and blades and he could take out half of the city with the stuff he could see through those windows, Christ, he was actually embarrassed for these idiots.

And himself, for being dumb enough to get caught by them.

That'd teach him to have any sort of pattern to his behavior on unfamiliar turf, he should've known he was tempting fate by going out alone, to the same coffee shop for the entire week he'd been in Austria. But he'd gotten used to New York, he'd gotten used to being Iron Man, to being tougher and faster and smarter than most people, and wow, this was a come down, wasn't it?

He'd gotten snatched by the criminal equivalent of the Keystone Cops, and by now the Avengers, and SHIELD and probably Interpol and the FBI and CIA and Homeland fucking Security and the UN and the President and Pepper Potts knew about it. Tony paused, wincing. Pepper was going to castrate him with a rusty oyster shucker. She hated it when he got kidnapped.

And this was technically Steve's first experience with Tony getting kidnapped. Tony had been careful since the Avengers had been formed, because nothing was worse for team building than one member of the team being too goddamn incompetent to keep himself from being grabbed off the street. Yeah, this was great. Everyone was going to be real eager to depend on his skills after this.

Steve was going to be freaking out. He'd do it quietly, privately, but the good Captain had control issues, and a lot of problems with losing people, with having his teammates beyond where he could help them. Shelter them. For God's sake, the man fought with a shield, that was fucking Freudian, wasn't it?

Tony gave himself a mental shake. Right. Sooner he got out of this and got himself the biggest goddamn drink this city could provide, the better off he'd be.

He took a deep breath, and another. Yeah. This was going to hurt.

Tony had started studying the escape methods of Harry Houdini in his teens. The practice had taken additional urgency after his stint in Afghanistan. It had become an obsession when he'd started wearing the Iron Man armor. It was one thing to escape from a captor, but it was another thing entirely to set his mind to escaping from his own crushed and compacted armor. It could take an amazing amount of punishment, but the fact that it was modular was both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness.

And when Tony was being honest with himself, he'd acknowledge that being trapped in the suit when it was twisted like a tin can in a trash compactor was a very real nightmare.

He shared some things with Houdini that made the task easier. Tony was actually taller than the magician, who'd only measured in at five feet, four inches, but it wasn't by much. They shared a similar bone structure, compact and flexible, and a similar temperament. A similar mental discipline and dedication to perfection, a nearly exact match when it came to taking stupid risks with careful training and preparation.

And a similar pain tolerance.

Tony sucked in a thin breath, regulating his breathing, his pulse, closing his eyes and working his hands around until he could lace his fingers together. His wrists were bound, and the ropes were woven through the wooden slats of the ladder back chair, but the rope was slick enough, and there was enough slack, that he could slide his arms up and down. They hadn't bothered to secure his feet at all.

Amateur hour, seriously.

Tony shifted his weight forward, sliding down the seat of the chair, and set his feet flat on the ground. Keeping his weight centered, he moved the chair across the floor, trying to make as little noise as possible. Because the next part tended to be loud, and painful.

Tipping his head back over his shoulder, he lined himself up with the edge of the heavy metal desk. His brain ran the calculations, fast and efficient, angle, force, pressure, weight, mass, velocity, material strength, all the variables flashing through his brain with the speed and precision of a computer calculation, and he shifted the chair one more time, finding the right spot. He took a deep breath and then pushed up with his calves, ankles, toes, rocking the chair back onto the rear legs, and checking to see where the slats met the edge of the desk.

Another minute movement, and he slammed his body forward, rocking himself forward onto the flat of his feet, and then pushed back with all the force in his legs, smashing the wooden slats of the chair against the heavy metal of the desk. He heard the wood crack, and felt the impact all the way up his back.

Gritting his teeth, he jerked his whole body forward, pulling hard against the cracked wood, using his weight as leverage, and felt the wooden slat give way. Rocking forward to put his feet on the ground, bracing, he worked the rope free of the wood. Balancing on one foot, he braced the other on the cross-bar of the chair, and pushed. The chair slid down and Tony slid up, and he was free.

Well, he was free of the chair. And the ropes weren't going to be much of a problem.

Flexing his shoulders, he went down on his knees, working his bound hands from behind him, over his hips. The movements practiced and assured, he rocked his body back and slipped his arms forward, adjusting the angle and twisting his wrists in the loops of rope until he was able to work first one, then the other leg through the hoop of his arms, his shoulders, elbows, wrists adjusting to the new position as he moved, smooth and confident. Rolling his shoulders, he sat back, his bound hands now in front of his body. He reached up and jerked the gag out of his mouth, snagged an edge of the rope in his teeth, and began working on the knots.

Less than fifteen minutes after waking up, Tony was free, rubbing the circulation back into his raw wrists and looping the rope over his arm. “Fucking idiots,” he grumbled under his breath. “At this rate, I'll be back on the streets in an hour, and SHIELD won't even announce that I was grabbed, and the only thing that will come out of this is the idea that I missed my goddamn lecture, and the scientific and engineering community will gloat about how I am so clearly UNRELIABLE and UNSTABLE and just because it's true, does not mean that I want to deal with the snickering.”

He was going to blow this place the hell up, just out of spite.

Okay, time for a quick rundown of the situation. He was free, and he was relatively healthy, that was a plus. His head ached, and so did his arms and shoulders, but nothing seemed damaged or broken, he'd had hangovers worse than this. Often.

His jacket was gone, and so was his wallet and watch, and he'd left his phone behind at the coffee shop, but he was still dressed. Excellent, because naked escapes were just embarrassing.

Tony had a fairly accurate internal clock, even if he didn't bother to check it often, and he estimated he'd been unconscious for around four hours, maybe more. No clocks, and no exterior windows, so it was a rough estimate only, but that was enough. Estimating the speed of the Quinjet (supersonic) and Steve's speed at figuring out when Tony had completely fucked up his life (even faster), the Avengers would have already reached the European continent. 

Which meant that the best thing that he could do was get the heck out of here and rendezvous with his team.

He took a deep breath, and started working. The office was small, and it took him only a few minutes to go through it, checking the desk drawers and the filing cabinet, looking at the boxes that were stacked haphazardly in the corner. Anything he figured might be of use went in his pockets, portioning things out, tucking useful bits in hidden corners, Houdini's old tricks of hiding picks and keys anywhere a search might miss them.

Then, carefully, he headed for the office doors. There were glass windows lining the front of the office, overlooking a metal catwalk, and beyond that, the warehouse floor. There was no sign of movement, Tony hadn't seen anyone since he'd woken up, but he took his time now, moving carefully and quietly.

The door was locked. Five minutes with a scrap of thin cardboard and a bent paper clip, and he was pushing it open. Another reason to, you know, have an actual headquarters; it might come with actual security features. As it was, this was more of an annoyance than any sort of impediment.

Out on the catwalk, in a low crouch behind some stacked boxes, Tony surveyed the landscape beneath him. The warehouse was pretty much one big room, rows upon rows of metal shelving forming aisles of differing widths. At the front were a couple of white box trucks, and near the front, a couple of offices near the main entrance. There were two men on patrol, down below, but they seemed uninterested in actually doing their jobs, just walking in an easily determined pattern.

Neither of them headed towards the back of the warehouse.

Tony watched, curious, and then looked for possible escape routes. Nothing up here, any windows that might lead to the outside were some distance above the catwalk, and even if he could reach them, it would like be a fifteen to twenty foot fall on the other side, straight down. He wasn't looking forward to a couple of broken legs, so that meant he needed a ground level access.

And that meant, he had to make sure no one was going to follow him.

Watching, he let his mind run through possibilities. His eyes flickering over the building, over the men, the shelves, the trucks. He let the numbers flow, calculations and probabilities and odds of success or failure. Time and effort and material availibility all fell into place, and he grinned, hard and sharp.

A moment later, he was moving down the catwalk, plans solidifying even as he moved.

*

“Only Tony Stark could have a bar fight in a coffee shop,” Natasha commented, looking around. 

“Some of us could pull that off,” Bruce said. “But I'll give you that only Tony could make this big of a mess in this short of a time.” He glanced around. “For a relatively small guy, he packs a lot of destruction per pound. I hope they have a good insurance policy.”

“SHIELD will cover the damages in exchange for cooperation, as long as everyone involved signs non-disclosure agreements.” Phil picked his way through the devastation. “They recovered his jacket and the barista had his phone. This is the point of contact.”

“No witnesses?” Steve asked, crouching down to look at the broken remains of a sugar dispenser. There was blood on the edges of the shards, dark red and flaking now. He swallowed hard.

“No one other than the girl. She's in custody, but she looks clear. They chose the spot well, apparently, Tony's been coming here every morning this week, the street doesn't get busy for another hour or so after his usual visit time, and the place is too small for any sort of security system.”

Clint paused in the doorway, eyes sliding around in a flicker of a glance. “I'm going to take a look around,” he said, and Coulson nodded.

“Keep your earpiece in, or I'm pulling you,” Coulson said, his voice calm. “We do not need you going off grid right now.”

“Regular check ins, understood.” Clint pulled the collar of his non-descript black SHIELD jacket up around his jaw.

Steve glanced over at him. “Be careful,” he said, and Clint's lips kicked up on one side.

“Always, Cap.” He gave Steve a flicker of a salute, and disappeared back out to the street. The long black case on his back held his bow and quiver, Steve knew it, but Hawkeye could disappear without a trace on the average street, and still have his weapon out in a matter of minutes.

Coulson was handing a file to Natasha, who opened it on the nearest intact table. Both she and Bruce looked over the pages as Coulson held a similar SHIELD folder to Steve. “Have we heard anything from Thor?” Steve asked, taking it.

“Still airborne, still staying high. We don't need to spook them. We need to have more information before we can start moving.” Coulson's mouth was tight, his jaw a hard line. “SHEILD is watching all lines of communication, both legitimate and, well, less than above board.”

Natasha straightened up. “I need to make some calls,” she said, striding for the door.

“Be careful,” Coulson said. She paused in the doorway, giving him a look. His lips twitched. “Poor choice of words, my apologies. Be discreet.”

“Not my first time at this rodeo,” she said, arching an eyebrow. She slid out of the door and disappeared. 

Steve watched her go, taking a deep breath. The SHIELD agents knew what they were doing, he'd seen their unique skill sets in action often enough, but right now, he did not want them slipping into the Vienna underworld. He needed them, and he needed them nearby.

Gritting his teeth, he went back to the intel that SHIELD had managed to put together. He had to trust his team. They hadn't let him down yet, and they wouldn't let Tony down now.

There wasn't much in the file folder. Basic info, some remote possiblities, and the rundown on a couple of previous attempts. Steve felt his shoulders tense. “This has happened before?” he asked, running his finger down the column of data.

“A few attempts in the past ten years. The Afghanistan incident was the only successful one that would be conclusively labeled as an actual kidnapping,” Coulson said, as Bruce fumbled with his reading glasses. “A few others that could be called a government sanctioned kidnapping. He was held without cause and without charge a few times on trips abroad. There are also four plots that were discovered and effectively neutralized before they came to anything.”

“He wasn't so lucky when he was a child,” Bruce said, his voice small.

“No. He wasn't.” Coulson wasn't even looking at his copy of the file folder. Steve knew he'd already memorized the pertinent data. “We have data on confirmed incidents, as well as some suspected ones that were never fully investigated.”

Yeah, Steve did not need to think about a small, helpless child Tony being held for ransom. He couldn't cope with that right now. He stared down at a couple of grainy, washed out photos. “These?”

“Taken from a surveillance camera at another shop. Pointed at the window, so it picked up the situation, but it's not of good enough quality to get much in terms of detail. Too far away, and the camera's, well, not SHIELD quality, let's put it that way.”

The shadowy forms were caught in mid step in the still photograph, and they were carrying something between them. Steve knew it was Tony, even before his eyes locked on what was clearly a hand, almost trailing on the ground between running legs. He stared down at it, his attention caught for a long, painful moment, and then he shut the folder.

“What are we-” His phone buzzed in his pocket, bringing everyone's head up. Steve pulled it from his belt, checking it. “Pepper Potts,” he said to Coulson. “Has anyone-”

“SHIELD policy is to keep information on a need to know basis,” Coulson said. “She would not be notified yet.”

Steve nodded, knowing without being told that he was expected to hold that company line. He moved to the door, and outside, and that was stupid, he knew it was stupid, but he did it anyway, and Coulson let him go. He stepped around the corner into the narrow alley between buildings, leaning his shoulders against the cool stone and took the call.

“Steve Rogers,” he said, trying to sound normal.

“Hello, Steve. It's Pepper.” There was a faint distance in her voice, it was always there, and Steve knew that she didn't like him much, and he wasn't particularly sure why. She was always polite, always nice. But they weren't friends. And he sometimes got the impression that she blamed him for something. What, he didn't have a clue, but it was there, barely hidden in her clear, brilliant eyes.

“Hello, Pepper,” he said, keeping his head down, hidden from view. “What can I do for you?”

She paused. “Steve, StarkIndustries just received a ransom demand for Tony,” she said, and there was an aching stillness in her voice, and Steve tried not to take it as a body blow. Because there was compassion there in her voice, worry. Not for Tony, but for Steve. She was speaking gently, cautiously, as if she knew how bad it was for him to hear those words.

Steve raised his hand, and Coulson was there, as if he'd been summoned. Surprised, Steve looked up to see Hawkeye perched on the edge of a high building across the way, folded over in a loose-limbed crouch, his knees up and his hands trailing between them. His bow was in his grip, but his eyes were on Steve. Coulson's eyes in the sky, always watching, always seeing things no one else could. Steve gave him a nod, and Clint nodded back, face and body and eyes still.

“Ransom demand,” he said to Coulson, who released a breath from between his teeth, a thin hiss of sound. He gave a sharp nod and pulled his phone out.

“You already knew,” Pepper said.

“We didn't know why,” Steve said to her. “But yes. We think he was on the phone-” He swallowed, coughed. “He was on the phone with me when it happened.”

A beat of silence. “Are you all right?” she said, her voice soft, gentle.

“We're going to get him back,” Steve said, ignoring the question, because he honestly didn't know how to answer it. 

“I know,” she said. She took a deep breath, and he could hear the wobble, the sound of suppressed tears in her breathing. “StarkIndustries won't pay the ransom. Tony set the policy, and we can't deviate from it.” 

“I know. It's the same policy for SHIELD. They won't deal with ransom demands,” Steve said. He paused, looked at Coulson. Even if either group were willing to break policy, Tony had left strict instructions. Steve understood the reasoning behind it, but some part of him just wanted to scream. If all these idiots wanted was money, then give them the damn money.

Hell, he had seventy years of back pay sitting in a savings account somewhere, and he didn't have any policy against paying ransoms. His policy pretty much boiled down to one thing: getting Tony back, safe and unharmed. He didn't much care what rules, or how many of them, he had to break to get that done, he just wanted Tony back.

Even as he thought it, he knew better. Paying ransoms would just make Tony a target. Intellectually, he knew it. Emotionally, well, let's face it, emotionally, he was a complete mess. Had been since he had woken up in a SHIELD facility and realized that he was completely and utterly alone.

Yeah, that had been fun.

Until the Avengers. Until Tony. Tony, always pushing and snarking and poking at every sore spot that Steve had and a few that he didn't even know he possessed, was his nemesis and his teammate and his friend and his family. He didn't know when any of it had happened, when Tony had changed from being an annoyance to being the only person Steve could tolerate being around some days, but that's just what had happened, and now, the idea of going without Tony was enough to make his stomach turn over, nausea thick and hot in his throat.

He remembered being alone. And he wasn't sure he could bear it again.

Steve felt Coulson's hand on his shoulder, steering him back into the coffee shop, and he let the smaller man push him along, and tried to focus on what was happening, rather than how screwed up he was. “Will you give Coulson the details?” he asked Pepper.

“What little I have, of course.” Her voice was steadier now, stronger. “Steve? I know what he's going to tell me about SHIELD policy. I called you first, because I want a promise from you. Whatever happens, I deserve the truth. I-” She paused, and he could almost hear her gathering herself. “I deserve that.”

“You do,” Steve said, without pausing. “You have my word.”

Another pause, and she was weighing his words, weighing if they could be trusted. “Thank you, Steve. I'll speak with Coulson, now.”

“Thank you, Pepper,” he said, and held the phone out to Coulson, who took it, and began running through information, rapid fire and using a short hand that the two of them must've developed at some point.

When Natasha ghosted back in, her eyes alight with unholy pleasure, he felt his first spike of hope. “I think I have a lead,” she said, and he grinned at her.

*

Tony Stark looked up when the door to the office slammed open. Above the line of his gag, his eyes were wide, and he jerked backwards as the men walked in.

The gag was yanked out of his mouth with a little too much force, and Tony's body rocked forward, jerking against the rope that tied him to the chair. Tony coughed, working his jaw against sore muscles. “What the fuck-” he managed.

“Get him up,” the man in the lead said, through his mask. Two others grabbed Tony's arms and dragged him up, ignoring his struggles. Chair and all, they dragged him towards the door. Behind his back he held onto the broken slat to keep the chair from being knocked aside and left behind.

After all, he'd gone to all the trouble to put himself back where they left him, except armed and with his hands secured in a simple, easily released slip-knot, it seemed a shame to let them in on his tricks now. Instead, he held on, letting the chair bump painfully against his legs and back as they pushed and yanked and carried him down the catwalk and down the stairs.

Reaching the main floor of the warehouse, he glanced up at the newcomers. “I take it neither Fury nor StarkIndustries would pay up,” he said, his voice rough. “So you went looking for someone more willing to fork over the cash.”

“Hello, Mr. Stark,” the man said, leaning over, tipping Tony's chin up with one gloved finger. “Yes. He is in adequate shape." He turned away, speaking to an assistant. "Pay the man, and take him with us.”

“Or,” Tony considered, his eyes narrowing, “you put out offers to all parties. And took the first positive reply. I'm not certain if that's genius or stupidity. Really, I'm kind of impressed, after all, you've just gained some pretty damn impressive enemies, and I'm not sure you're ready to deal with-”

Something smashed hard into the side of his face, and everything went dark.

*

“Call it,” Coulson said in his ear, and Steve took a deep breath.

“Hawkeye, any movement?”

“Nothing, Cap.” Clint's voice was a breath of sound, thin and still and still precisely audible. “We've got at least ten individuals, all in the lower offices. No other heat signatures.”

“Thor, you in position?”

“Aye. Say the word, I am ready.” High in the air, Thor hovered on the wind. “They shall not make it to the streets, fear not.”

He had the back, Steve and Coulson were at the front, the main doors, with SHIELD agents holding a loose perimeter, ready to move in. Hawkeye and Black Widow were inside, on the second floor, crouched and ready on opposite ends of the building. Bruce was at the rear of the warehouse, in a non-discript SHIELD van, waiting, though hopes were high that he wouldn't need to be involved.

Steve glanced at Coulson, who nodded. “Go,” he said, and the team moved from all angles.

The front doors of the warehouse went down in a muffled boom, and Steve shot through, shield up and ready. The doors to the offices burst open and men were running in all directions, SHIELD agents pouring in like army ants to meet them. Natasha dropped from above, snagging one man by the back of his shirt and flipping him hard to the ground, one foot snapping up to catch another in the middle of the chest. He crashed into the wall, and a pair of arrows hit, pinning him there.

“Two more moving back and rear, one o'clock,” Clint said, his voice almost bored as he tracked the movement beneath him. Arrows sang and Steve took off running after the escaping targets. 

Steve ran full out through a narrow aisle built of high metal shelving, cutting through and cornering hard, coming out just in time to see the two men hopping into a truck. A moment later, the one in the passenger seat was tumbling back out, and Steve reached the truck door on the driver's side, ripping it open as the driver struggled to get the engine to turn over.

The door peeled free of the truck's frame in Steve's hand, and he tossed it aside, sending it crashing across the concrete floor. Reaching in, he grabbed the driver by the front of the shirt, yanking him out and smashing a fist into the man's jaw as he struggled to pull a weapon. He went limp, and Steve tossed him after the truck door, sending the body bouncing over to lie on top of the crumpled metal.

The other man had gotten into a second truck, and this one started. Steve vaulted over the hood of the first truck as the second target threw the truck into gear. 

What happened next was so fast he nearly didn't catch the sequence.

The truck shot forward, and a chain that had been hooked around the rear axle, hidden beneath the truck bed, unfurled and pulled taut. The other end of the chain, attached to the nearest set of metal shelves, snapped forward, ripping out a support column, and the shelves screamed in protest as they twisted, buckled and came crashing down, one set falling into the next, and then the whole place was tipping like a carefully aligned set of dominoes.

Containers and boxes rained down, and the truck skidded as the driver panicked, wrenching the wheel to the side as he tried to avoid the debris. A sequence of barrels crashed to the ground, splitting open, and chemicals splashed in all directions, and the tires squealed as they went through the cascading waves. One tire popped with a sound like a gun shot, then another.

The truck slammed into the wall with an ear-splitting crash.

Steve reached the truck in two long strides, slamming his shield into the hood, cutting through the metal as if it were tissue. With one swing of his arm, he smashed through the window with a brutal fist. The man inside was pulling a gun, and in a fit of rage, Steve grabbed his wrist, squeezing until the bones cracked and the man screamed. Then Steve pulled him out through the broken window and slammed him back against the side of the truck, not caring if the metal dented or if the broken edges of the window cut into the man's back. The gun fell from the man's battered hand, clattering to the ground.

“Where is Tony Stark?” Steve snarled, leaning in, almost nose to nose with the man, who was whimpering and wailing, his whole body twisting in Steve's grip.

When he didn't answer, Steve pulled him back, and slammed him into the truck a second time, repeating the question in German.

“I'd advise you answer the man,” Clint's voice came from behind his shoulder, and Steve heard the tell-tale whine of his bow string being pulled taut. It held all the threat of a bomb fuse burning down.

The man was panting, panic, pain and fear an ugly mix on his face. “They-” he gasped out, “they took him already.”

Behind him, Clint cursed, and it was echoed by a second voice, Natasha had arrived as silently as ever. “Who?” Steve said, his voice soft and controlled deadly with violence buried deep. “Who took him? Where did they go?”

He choked as Steve's knuckles dug into his throat. He gagged on the word, and the blood was pounding so hard in his ears that Steve didn't understand it. He lifted the man up, arms twisting as he held the idiot off the floor, leaving his feet kicking helplessly in mid-air. “WHO.”

“Hydra,” the man whispered, and Steve took the single word like a body blow.

For an instant, he lost all hope of conscious thought, all he had was instinct and emotion. He was one exposed nerve ending, fear and rage and pain, and he couldn't think, he could not think about Hydra having Tony, he knew what Hydra could do, had done, would do, he knew how he'd found Bucky on one of their experimental tables, and that was seventy years ago, they'd had time to refine their horrors, to push the limits of human cruelty and bend technology to a dark will, and he wanted to scream or throw up or-

“We need him alive,” Natasha's voice cut through the haze, and Steve realized that his hand was around the man's throat, squeezing, gloved fingers digging deep into the flesh. “Captain, he might have information we need.”

“Fuck it, we've got another nine of them,” Clint said, unconcerned, but Steve pried his fingers lose, relaxing his hand with a force of will. 

It was far harder than he ever would've imagined that it would be.

The man crashed to the ground, gasping and gagging as he flailed in the shattered remains of his truck window. He was making a pathetic whimpering noise, and he made a grab for his gun. Clint stomped hard on his hand, making him scream.

“Oops,” Clint said as the man slumped forward, the pain pushing him over the edge into unconsciousness.

“Thank you, Specialist,” Coulson said, picking his way through the disaster. “I take it this is Stark's exceptional handiwork.”

“I don't see how it can be anyone else's,” Clint said, shaking his head. “What'd he do, wind the chain through a bunch of shelving units?”

“Pretty much,” Steve said. Control. He could control himself. He could, and he would. “They handed him over to Hydra,” he said to Coulson, who nodded.

“That's the same intel we got from the others,” he said. “We're boxing them up now.” He stepped to the side, allowing a couple of battlesuit-wearing agents to sweep in and collect the two men that Steve had disabled. “We'll get the details out of the ones that are still awake.” He glanced at Natasha. “Or alive.”

“I didn't kill any of them,” she said, nose in the air. “Disabled. But not dead.”

“Mmmm,” Coulson said. “The hand-off has to have been recent. We've sent out a general alert, the borders will be on alert, and we're moving in additional agents to handle an extensive manhunt.”

“How long?” Steve asked.

Coulson shook his head. “Hard to tell.” And he wasn't telling the truth, Steve had learned to read that pinched look near his eyes, but he couldn't bring himself to press. “We think he's still local at this point. We're checking all aerial and ground movements, Cap.”

Natasha grinned. “Give me ten minutes with one of them, and I'll have all the information you want,” she said to Coulson.

“I may take you up on that. For now...” He glanced at Steve. “Sweep the building?”

“Yes. I think we should send out Thor. See if he can spot anything from the air.” Steve wrenched his shield back from the hood of the truck with the whine of grinding metal. “Hydra is fast, but not often subtle.”

“Agreed.”

Clint had popped the hood on the first truck, and gave a dark chuckle. “Yeah, this thing's missing a bunch of parts. Either they take lousy care of their vehicles, or Stark cannibalized this for some other use. Or to make sure it wasn't going to be going anywhere.”

“Likely both.” Steve's lips stretched in a smile, reluctant but real. “What the hell were you up to, Tony?”

“Let's find him, and ask.” Coulson gave him a faint smile. “For now-” He glanced around. “Let's make sure he didn't leave any other little surprises behind, shall we?”

With a flick of his hand, he signaled for the agents, and with a brisk step, moved away from the Avengers, sending his minions off in all directions at once.

Steve glanced at Natasha. “Any chance you'll be able to find out where he's been moved?”

She shrugged. “I'll do my best. But my contacts in this area are distinctly small time. They keep afloat by staying out of sight and out of the maws of the big boys. And Hydra is, to be honest, the biggest boy working this area. They keep to themselves and they don't do much with contract workers. Clint?”

He was still poking around under the hood of the truck. “Maybe,” he said. “I've got feelers of my own out, which may let us know if anyone spots movement. At the very least, the small fry know to get out of the big shark's path. They may not know what Hydra's up to, or why they wanted Tony, but if they're moving, someone will know where and when.” He leaned back at last, slamming the hood shut. “I'll lean on a couple of sources, I'm pretty good for that.”

Steve nodded. “I'll see what SHIELD has to say. This... Changes things,” he said.

“Yeah. But it's still us, and it's still Tony, and he was moving around this building a few hours ago. So he's healthy and he's thinking and if they wanted him dead, Cap, he'd already be dead. They took him, and they'll keep him alive.”

“And all we need is time,” Natasha agreed.

“Let's hope it's time that Tony has left,” Steve said. “Let's go.”


	3. Chapter 3

Tony hit the ground with a thud that rattled his teeth, broke the chair he was still pretending to be tied to, and woke him right the hell up.

“I don't remember ordering a wake up call,” he said, staring at the floor, because his face was mashed up against the metal panel, so, really, not much else to look at. “The service around here is just atrocious, I'm going to lodge a complaint with the home off-”

A booted foot impacted with his side, and he choked on a howl of pain, because Christ on a crutch, that hurt. He heard laughter, and a door slamming shut, and that was okay, that was good, because it left him alone with his ribs and that was a party that did not need any other guests.

As the pain receded, Tony sucked in a slow, careful breath. The spike of agony was not unexpected, but it was worrying. Hopefully just bruised. Badly bruised. He could live with bruised, but he hated cracked ribs. Hated the overwhelming agony of not being able to breathe without a stabbing pain, hated how he had to wrap the damn things, hated hiding that particular injury from everyone. 

He tried to roll over and nearly blacked out from the pain.

Okay, new thought. Cracked ribs were definitely better than broken ribs. Broken ribs weren't an annoyance, they were potentially life threatening. So yes, they were definitely cracked.

Fucking Hydra.

He did not need this nonsense. He'd been so close, so close to making it out of the fucking building, and then they'd shown up, too many unmarked trucks and men in black with guns at every entrance and window that he could find, and he'd run the calculations, the chances of escaping versus the possibility of being moved. At the time, his chances of making it out, without any clear path of escape, without backup, and without actual intel about what he was facing were slim to none.

Of course, if he'd know it was fucking HYDRA, he would've taken that razor thin chance. Because damn, he hated Hydra. Crazy freaks. He did not need this.

Okay, time to do a quick recap. Hands were still tied, and that was fine, it looked secure, but it wasn't, it was a bad slipknot that he could pull out of at anytime. The chair was broken, so he could pull away from the wreckage without anyone being suspicious. He was being transported, because the floor beneath him was vibrating, and it was probably by ship, judging by the size and shape of the room, and the fact that he couldn't feel any change in altitude in his ears. He was still dressed, still had his shoes, so that meant any search he'd undergone while unconscious was likely cursory at best. 

Yeah, there were some advantages to being the normal guy on the team. It was a little insulting when he wasn't taken seriously, but when it worked out to his advantage, he had to be grateful. Well, okay, he had to be glad. Grateful was pushing it.

Of course, he was grateful that he still had his shoes. And therefore, they probably hadn't found the little toy he'd hidden under the arch of his left foot. Nothing better than raiding an office to locate a broken and abandoned piece of tech. 

Because what the average cell phone user considered broken and what Tony Stark considered broken, were often two very, very different things.

He needed three things now. Privacy, a couple of minutes, and access to the general system. And a lot of goddamn luck. Tony took a deep breath and wiggled his way across the floor, pushing his back up against the nearest wall. His fingers started feeling their way across the plates, looking for a seam.

Time to get to work.

*

“We've got incoming.”

Clint's voice, clear and sharp through the earpiece, brought everyone's head up. Coulson keyed his comm. “Report, Hawkeye.” His hands were braced on the table, which was still covered with papers. Bruce and Steve had stacks of their own as they looked for patterns or information hidden in the warehouse ledgers and shipping manifests. SHIELD had hauled most of it away, but there were still black suited agents going in all directions. For the most part, they were doing their best to stay out of the Avengers' way.

“Did Fury say anything about pulling War Machine in on this?”

Coulson's eyebrows jerked up. “No.” He glanced at Steve, who shook his head. He hadn't heard from Pepper since the first call, and he'd met Rhodes, but he didn't know the man. Hadn't ever really had a conversation with him that didn't involve Tony. “He's coming in?”

“Hard and hot. Orders?”

“Visual confirmation only, he look like he's going to make landfall here?”

“In about forty-five seconds, yes.”

Steve was already striding for the door, Coulson tight on his heels. “Do you know him?” he asked Coulson in an undertone.

“We've met. I've never worked with him. Director Fury does not agree with Stark's decision to allow the suit to remain with Lt. Col. Rhodes. When displeased, he tends towards behavior that in a normal person might be called pouting.”

“And in Fury?” Steve asked, his lips twitching despite himself.

“Results in spying and explosions in pretty equal amounts,” Coulson said. They walked out into the parking lot just as the silver armor came to a hard landing.

Steve considered him as War Machine straightened up. He preferred Tony's version of the armor, bright and flashy, lean and trim, built for speed and precision, rather than blunt force. The silver armor that James Rhodes wore sprouted guns from every surface, an in-your-face threat that Tony had always eschewed.

The main reason Steve didn't like the suit, of course, was because it wasn't the Iron Man armor, and it didn't contain Tony. Because he was fair and rational that way.

Shaking off the bitter thought, he stepped forward. “Colonel?”

The visor flipped up, revealing a tired, care-worn face. Rhodes gave him a sharp nod, and repeated the gesture in Coulson's direction. “Captain. Agent Coulson. Sorry to arrive unannounced, but I have some information for you, Captain Rogers. I need to speak to you privately.”

“Uh, yeah, no,” Clint said, his voice sardonic, and Steve wasn't even sure where he was, but it was clear that he was keeping an eye on things.

“Stand down, Hawkeye,” Coulson said, calm about it.

“We can step inside,” Steve started, and Rhodes was already shaking his head. 

“Privately means privately. I'm sorry. But what I have is for your ears-” He paused, eyes flicking up, clearly looking for Hawkeye as well. “And eyes only.”

“Sir, if you have information about Stark's status,” Coulson said, “that is information that the entire team needs.”

“You have your orders, Agent Coulson, and I have mine,” Rhodes said. His face was tight. “And time is passing very fast here. I need to talk to you alone, Captain.”

Steve stared at Rhodes, weighing his options. “Fine,” he said, trusting Tony, even if he wasn't quite sure about Rhodes. “We can move away from here, if you'd prefer. Or snag one of SHIELD's vans.”

“Not going to work,” Rhodes said, shaking his head. “I'm going to need you to leave your comm unit, and come with me. Not far. But far enough that I can be sure we're not going to be subject to any unintended company.”

“No. Fucking. Way,” Hawkeye said, his voice flat.

Coulson held up a placating hand. “I am really not comfortable with this,” he said, to Steve and Rhodes, his eyes cutting back and forth between them. “We've already lost one team member. Let's not lose another.”

“I'd like to help you get him back,” Rhodes said. “I need to get him back. For that, I need your help.” He met Steve's gaze, brown eyes level and calm. “I need you to trust me here, Captain, because I'm trusting you.”

Steve nodded. Reaching up, he removed his comm unit from his ear and handed it to Coulson, ignoring the loud and enthusiastic swearing coming across the earpiece from Clint. He gave Phil a half smile. “Sorry about this,” he said, and Phil gave him a faint shrug. 

“I'll deal with it.” He glanced at Rhodes. “I want a time frame.”

“Half an hour. Max.”

“I'll hold you to that,” Coulson said with a nod. His face was tight, the lines next to his eyes defined, sharp points against his clear eyes. “Cap, your team is on edge already. I'll keep them in line, but if you go one minute over that time limit-”

“I know. Thor?”

“I'll keep him grounded.”

Rhodes held out a hand. “You've flown with Tony?”

And it took everything in him not to slap Rhodes' gauntlet away. Because yes, he'd flown with Tony, Tony had carried him more times than he could count, and he liked being carried by Tony, and Rhodes was not Tony. Instead, he gritted his teeth and wrapped an arm around Rhodes' shoulders. Rhodes gripped him around the waist. “Hold on.” The visor snapped down, and before he could take off, an arrow slammed into the parking lot between his feet. “Cute,” Rhodes said.

Steve dragged the cowl over his head. “He has his own ways of coping with stress,” he said, not really bothered by it, because Coulson would handle the situation. And if Hawkeye had really been intent on stopping them, or even warning them, it would've been an EMP tip, not the basic broad blade tip.

Rhodes shifted his grip on Steve, and making sure that there weren't going to be an slips, he took off. Steve glanced back as they took flight, seeing Natasha pad out of the warehouse, her expression blank. Bruce was right behind her, and Thor had landed by Coulson, his body language indicating that he was not happy, and that, in fact, he was arguing the point with vehemence.

But he stayed put as Coulson spoke to him. They all stayed put. Steve gave them all a quick wave, before he and Rhodes were up and out of sight.

It was a quick trip, and when they came down on the edge of a small patch of wooded land, Steve let go almost before his feet were on the ground. “What's this all about?” he asked. “Is this an official visit from a military liaison? Or did Pepper tell you-”

“Not quite. Pepper followed StarkIndustries protocol. I got the intel from my own sources, and I'm officially being listed as providing support on an ongoing problem of importance to the American military. I can't stay, because SHIELD hasn't officially made this public, but there's something you need to know.” 

Rhodes took a deep breath. “Howard was a friend of yours, I get that. But I hate the guy. Let's just preface this by making that clear.”

Steve blinked, not sure where Howard factored into the situation, but he nodded. “That's a common reaction among Tony's friends. He wasn't always easy to like face to face, either, but he had this charisma that allowed you to, well, see beyond that.”

It hadn't been easy, though. Sometimes Howard had been mercurial, your best friend one moment, your worst enemy the next. He was alternately stubborn to the point of being unbalanced, and quick to abandon anything that ceased to interest him.

However, he was capable of fierce loyalty, and his flashes of brilliance were almost incandescent, blinding and powerful to watch, let alone experience. Like a bomb, like a toxic spill, Howard had a minimum safe distance, and if you were in that radius when he got going, you'd be lucky to get out alive. He was brave and tough and so susceptible to his own demons that in the end, the fact that he'd accomplished as much as he had was a miracle.

It was so easy to love Howard Stark. It was far, far easier to hate him.

Sometimes, Steve desperately wished he could ask Howard why. Why he had ever married and had a child. Was it just because that was what had been expected of a man of his position? Was it societal pressure? Had he actually loved Maria, or enjoyed her company? Had he wanted Tony? Been glad when he was born? Had Maria's pregnancy been a mistake, or planned? Had they been eager for their child, or indifferent? Or worst of all, resentful?

Would it have been easier to love the awkward, frustrated little boy if he'd been more cheerful and less intelligent? Had Howard's relationship with his only child, his only blood relation, been so fractured because Howard could not bear the dawning realization that Tony was smarter than him?

That Tony, and what Tony would accomplish, would outstrip his own contributions in due time?

In his darkest moments, Steve had wondered if Howard had deliberately tried to crush Tony's spirit, his curiosity and his drive and his self-worth, to keep that from happening. He'd never admit it to anyone, but he wondered. Because he'd seen those rare, rescued pictures of Tony as a child, all huge dark liquid eyes and skinned elbows and stubborn chin beneath wild dark hair, and he couldn't imagine anyone not loving that boy. That fragile, wild, fierce child who stared at the camera lens like it was an enemy always looked like he needed a hug.

Judging by what he remembered of Howard, and Tony's current feelings towards his parents, he hadn't gotten them.

So maybe that had been the case. That Howard had been, what? Intimidated? Afraid? Resentful? Of his own child. And Tony would have taken the malicious intent as his due, because anything, anything at all was better, in Tony Stark's mind, than indifference.

Every time Steve caught Tony flinching from an off-hand comment sometimes, or avoiding physical contact, or deflecting a word of gratitude or a compliment with a self-mocking joke, Steve hated Howard, hated him with a force that he wasn't really comfortable with. Hated him for not investing the minute amount of effort that would've made the difference in Tony's life.

Rhodes snorted under his breath, dragging Steve's mind back to the present. “I'll take your word for it, Cap. I never knew the guy. I just got to deal with the fallout. I understand that kids don't always remember things the way they really happened, that they get a skewed view of how things really are, but Tony's got enough psychosis to make me think that his childhood was not a happy one.

“I knew him at MIT, where he was brilliant and angry and drunk at fifteen, undersized and just starved, for all sorts of things, and you don't get that way by coming from a stable, loving household.” The rush of words seemed to surprise them both, and Rhodes' shoulders hunched. He took a deep breath, and Steve heard the ragged sound at the edges of it. He didn't say anything, giving Tony's best friend a chance to pull himself together.

When Rhodes spoke again, it was with an audible attempt at control. “So I hate Howard Stark, more than I thought it was possible to hate a dead man I'd never actually met. I tell you that only so you'll understand that I'm not really rational about this, let alone fair about it.” He glanced in Steve's direction, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “I assign him the basest reasons for his actions because, really, the guy was an asshole of the highest degree, and he's been hanging over Tony's head for a long time now.”

Steve just nodded.

Rhodes stared at him, eyes narrowed, mouth tight. He took a deep breath, and even through the armor, Steve say his shoulders rise and fall with the force of it. “What do you know about Tony's rescue, when he went grabbed in Afghanistan?”

Steve, caught off guard, paused, considering. “I've read the files. You're the one that brought hm back, weren't you?”

“Yes. After three months of looking.” Rhodes' eyes were steady. “You ever wonder how we found him?”

“He'd just done the first, well, flight with the Iron Man prototype, isn't that correct?” Steve asked. “The movement was spotted?”

“It was spotted because we were already looking in that general vicinity,” Rhodes said, his voice low. “Afghanistan is a big expansive country. And we had nothing to go on, other than the location of his capture. After that, he disappeared into the rabbits' warren of caves and he got himself out. We found him because we were already watching that particular patch of real estate when he left a clear con trail for us to follow.”

He paused. Considered. “Tony has a tracker embedded in his neck, just behind the fourth vertibre.”

Steve stared at him, not comprehending. “What?” He grabbed Rhodes' arm, jerking the other man forward with a little too much force. Rhodes rocked on his heels, even the armor not much of an impediment to Steve's strength. “What did you say?”

Rhodes met his eyes head on, gaze calm and even. “Tony Stark,” he said, his voice soft, assured, “has a tracker buried in his neck. One that not even he knows about.”

Steve wobbled on his feet, and locked his knees to keep himself upright. “How is that possible?” The information was beginning to sink in, and he was light headed with it. Fear and hope and disbelief battled for supremacy, and he forced them all down. “How- Who-” His head snapped up. “Does Pepper know about this? Does SHIELD?”

“No one knows, Cap. Tony doesn't know. Until just know, I was the only human being who knew.” Rhodes' lips quirked in a smile that was distinctly lacking in humor. “You're the second.”

Steve shook his head. “I don't understand,” he admitted.

Rhodes glanced at him, and away. “When he was captured in Afghanistan, we knew he wasn't killed at the scene. Intel was that he was alive when he was taken, but injured. We spent three months looking, because we had the full backing of StarkIndustries, and the military was not eager for the contents of that brain to fall into the wrong hands. Anyone else, they probably would've called off the search, but at the time, Tony was the primary weapons contractor to the United States. It's pretty much the biggest open secret in the defense world that Tony builds things so that Tony can counteract them. He doesn't like having anything out there that he doesn't have a back door into, and that's dangerous.

“Especially if he's in the hands of our enemies.”

He paused, and looked away, sharp eyes scanning the landscape. “Three months is a long time, and it's even longer if you don't have to sleep, if your only task, the only thing you have to focus your remarkable intellect on, is finding your creator.”

The pieces snapped into place with an almost audible click in Steve's mind. “Jarvis,” he said.

“Jarvis,” Rhodes agreed. “Jarvis, who knows more about Tony than any other being on Earth. Three months is a hell of a long time, and for a supercomputer like Jarvis, it might as well be an eternity. While the rest of us humans had other distractions, Jarvis just dedicated himself to locating Tony, and he found something we'd missed.”

Rhodes removed a gauntlet, and touched a plate on his chest. It parted, just a bit, and he fished a folded sheet of paper from the hidden crack. He handed it over to Steve. “Not a surprise it went unnoticed. It's tiny, it's in a problematic location, and it appears in x-rays all the way back to when Tony was around eight years old. There's only one x-ray on record where it isn't present.”

Steve unfolded the page. The scan was of the neck and skull in profile. There was a marked circle around an almost invisible fleck that was snugged up against the bones of the spine.

“It went unnoticed, partially because of the size and location, and partially because it seems inert. Because Tony resents the medical community, Jarvis probably has more data on him than anyone else, and he started to question what the hell this was. It seemed like a bone fragment, or a shard of metal that had worked its way into Tony's tissue, but the scans made it clear that it wasn't either one.

“So the question was, what was it, and why was it there? Or rather, who put it there?”

Steve stared down at the page, and his fingers tightened on the paper, crinkling it. “Howard.”

“Howard's pretty much the only explanation,” Rhodes agreed. “And it's an explanation I don't particularly like.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “The only x-ray in his medical file where it's not present is one taken when he was seven. He'd fallen off the roof, and he broke his collarbone, so the neck was included in the x-rays. About eighteen months later, he was hospitalized after a kidnapping. At that point, the fragment is clearly visible on the x-rays.”

“You say it's a tracker?” Steve asked, not wanting to hope, not wanting to deal with the disappointment if this failed.

“Sort of. That's the difficulty, Captain. By tech standards, this thing is ancient, and at the time when Howard created it, it wouldn't have been a tracker.” He glanced over, and read the confusion on Steve's face. He took a deep, tense sounding breath. “I don't understand it myself, but what Jarvis says is that it's a unique combination of alloys, and it has an inherent, well, vibration is how Jarvis explained it. A certain signature, one that registered on his medical scans, but Jarvis had never really put any real effort into looking at that signature until Tony went missing. He had the data, he just had to run with it. With access to a global network of exceptionally powerful satellites and scientific tools, Jarvis is able to get a read on it, to triangulate enough to narrow down the potential location.

“Back when Tony was eight years old, it's highly doubtful that Howard would've had the sensors necessary to track the signal. He might've been able to pick it up, but that's about it. A blind yes response, with no other data.”

Steve shook his head. “So, why?”

“The reaction is powered, by the lack of a better word, by Tony's body. It's basically been patched into his nervous system, so it only puts out a signal if Tony's alive. Jarvis doesn't think it was intended as a tracker.”

“It was intended as proof of life,” Steve said, his voice hollow.

“Yeah,” Rhodes agreed. “And since I hate Howard Stark, I cynically assume that he didn't want to pay a ransom if his kid was dead.” When Steve's head jerked towards him, he shrugged. “I warned you up front. Sorry.” He didn't sound particularly apologetic, but Steve really couldn't blame him.

“So Howard embedded this little toy in Tony, but either kept no data on it, or destroyed everything he had before he died. We've got nothing on it. Jarvis has been through all known databases, files, everything. There's nothing even close to this in any of the StarkIndustries files or the personal papers he left behind.”

Steve made an effort to relax his grip. The page was a folded mess. “But Jarvis can track it.”

“To a point. Even with the technological advantage, and years to recalibrate the algorithms that he used the last time, he can only narrow it down to a basic geographic area.”

“How big an area?”

“Depends on if Tony's moving. And the density of the sensor grid in the area where he lands. In Afghanistan, we got it down to about 100 square miles, which was a lot of fucking desert, excuse my French. If he ends up in a populated area? Jarvis could probably bring it down to around fifty square miles. Still a lot of ground to cover, but a hell of a lot smaller then, well, the entire world.”

“I'll take it,” Steve gritted out. “Why the subterfuge, Colonel?

Rhodes crossed his arms. “I don't trust Fury as far as I can throw him, and even in the suit, that's not all that far. Jarvis, meanwhile, has been into SHIELD's systems. He trusts Fury even less than I do. He had to tell me, the last time. He needed feet on the ground. This time, he gave me permission to tell you.”

“But not the rest of the team?” Steve asked, his heart sinking.

With a shrug, Rhodes said, “Jarvis is leaving that up to you.” His face twitched, a flicker of a smile. “Congratulations. The smartest system in the entire world has decided to put his faith in you.”

“I don't understand.”

“If Tony knew he was carrying this thing around, he would dig it out of his neck with the nearest sharp implement. Knowing Tony, and I do, that means he'd end up jabbing himself in spine with a ballpoint pen. You may have noticed, but he has control issues, he has daddy issues, and he chafes under authority. Jarvis knows full well that if he knows about it, he'll try to get it out, and it's so close to his spine that even actual surgical intervention has a chance of life-threatening injury.” Rhodes shook his head. “If Fury knew he was carrying it, well, I'm not thinking that would go well. And you've got three SHIELD agents on your team.”

Steve was already shaking his head. “No. They all know what Fury's capable of. They'll keep it out of the reports, for Tony's safety if for no other reason.”

“Romanov and Barton, I'd believe that. Coulson?” Rhodes gave him a hard look, his voice tight. “Not a chance. He's a company man. He knows who signs his paychecks.” His hands flexed into fists, and flattened back out, the knuckles rattling like a sequence of well-oiled gears. “He's military, Captain. He'll follow his chain of command.”

Steve glanced down at the page. “Yes, he is. And right now, he's in the Avengers chain of command. He'll keep the intel need to know.” 

Rhodes studied him, his face expressionless. Steve had dealt with Tony enough to be able to read his body language through the armor, the way the weight shifted on the balls of the feet, the way the shoulder plates lay depending on if he was still or relaxed beneath the metal. The tension in the neck, the back, that lead to minute grinding noises when there was any movement at all. He didn't flinch, or look away. 

“Coulson's on our side. I'll stake my life on that.”

“You're staking Tony's,” Rhodes pointed out.

“And I'm much more careful with his than I am with mine,” Steve said.

There was a drawn out moment of silence, and Rhodes gave him a faint smile. “You know, Captain, I do believe that's the truth.” He took a deep breath, his face losing all trace of humor as fast as it had come. “Keep it off the comms. No discussion of the situation over any sort of device SHIELD could access.” He opened up another hidden pocket and handed Steve a sleek StarkPhone. “This is a direct uplink to Jarvis. Untraceable, unhackable. He'll feed you what you need to know, get you anything and everything he can. Jarvis is with you, no matter what happens; he won't risk Tony's life. 

“However, if this blows up in his face, in a manner of speaking, he'll take that into account when he deals with you moving forward.”

Steve gave a faint snort of laughter. “I'm guessing that having Jarvis as an enemy is not something you'd suggest.”

“I try to keep from making Jarvis mildly annoyed, and I do not live in a building that he controls. Having him as an actual enemy would be pretty much a living nightmare.”

“Understood.” Steve folded the page, following the creases and continuing folding it until it was as small as he could make it, then he tucked it into one of his belt pockets. He paused, knowing he needed to ask and not wanting to verbalize it. “He's alive.” He made it a statement, not a question.

He could not possibly allow that to be a question.

“Yes. The tracker's throwing off enough light, so to speak, that Jarvis is certain of that. He's alive, and he's moving.” Rhodes managed a faint smile. “We're going to get him back.”

“Yes. We are.” Steve sucked in a slow, pained breath. “Okay,” he said. He rubbed a hand over his face and tried to ignore the way it was shaking. He forced his fingers to relax around the phone's case. Relief was enough to break a man. 

Of course, hope might be worse.

“If they wanted him dead, we'd already be bagging him up,” Rhodes said, and the bluntness of it was a punch to the gut. Steve jerked at the words like a physical blow. “You know I'm right,” Rhodes said. “He's alive, and he's a lot tougher than even you might think. Especially for a civilian. He'll keep himself alive until we find him.”

“I know he will. Let's go. We're running short on time, and I'd like to get my team somewhere safe before I detonate this particular bomb in their face. Good news or not, this is going to change the game.”

Rhodes nodded, and reached for Steve. “I'll drop you off, and then I have to go. Any other questions, you'll have to ask Jarvis directly. Good luck, Captain.”

“Thank you, Colonel. For everything.” And Steve gritted his teeth for the return trip. It would be over soon. With this, with Jarvis, thank God for Jarvis, they'd be able to find Tony, and it would all be over.

He had to believe that.

*

The rough hands ignore his struggles, forcing him down in a chair. Knowing what was coming, Tony took a deep breath, and then another. When the bag was ripped off of his head, he blinked, almost blind until his eyes could adjust.

“Oh,” he said, looking around, his head lolling on his boneless neck. “Thank God, I thought this was going to be my Board of Directors meeting.”

He knew the blow was coming, and he braced himself for it, the muscles of his abdomen locking up. It still hurt like a son of a bitch when the heavy fist slammed into his stomach. He snapped forward with the force of it, and was still gasping for breath when he was dragged back upright by his hair.

“Always with the smart mouth,” the smooth, German accented voice said in his ear.

“I resent that,” Tony gasped out, his voice holding a faint, hysterical giggle. “I've got a smart everything.” And that resulted in another punch.

“If he's dead, I'm not going to be interested in these negotiations,” Fury's cool, controlled voice said, and Tony struggled to make his eyes focus.

“Really?” he choked, something darkly amused bouncing around in his voice and his head, a wicked little twist of black humor. “A live video conference? Really, you thought this was a good idea? Putting me in front of a fucking live camera? Because, let me tell you, this was stupid, this was so very, very-”

Another punch, and this one was on the bad side of his ribs, and he gagged on the impulse to throw up. It would serve them right if he did. Of course, he had no desire to spend the foreseeable future in clothing with vomit on it, so maybe not. Not worth it.

“Could you please just gag him?” Fury asked, a faint sigh in his voice.

“It's really not my primary concern,” the Hydra officer said. “Let him learn the importance of holding his tongue in the presence of his betters the hard way. He would not be the first mouthy child who must have his insolence beaten out of him.”

“Listen, if I haven't learned by now, I'm not certain you're going to accomplish it,” Tony said, and his head was jerked up, the grip in his hair painful enough to spark tears in his eyes. He met the cold, disdainful gaze for only a second, and then jerked his eyes away. It was a calculated effort, and it worked, the officer chuckled down at him.

“Oh, we can be very... Persuasive.”

Tony braced himself, and the punches came hard and fast and as he bent forward with them, he bit down savagely on the inside of his cheek. Coughing, gagging, he spit blood to the floor, and the Hydra underling chuckled, placing one gloved finger beneath Tony's chin, tipping it up. Tony let the breath rattle in his chest, and blood flecked spittle collected in the corners of his mouth. “And now?”

Tony considered him with glassy, unfocused eyes. “Sorry,” he managed. “Still not the fairest in the land.” His lips pulled back, giving the guy a direct look at teeth now edged in red.

Okay, so he probably deserved that slap. Still totally fucking worth it.

He rolled his head back up, pretending that he was having problems focusing. On the other side of the teleconference, Fury, Coulson and Maria Hill kept the three best poker faces that Tony had ever seen. “D' you guys play poker?” he asked aloud. “'Cause you- You got the faces down pat, anyone ever tell you that? Yeah, I bet you're all just bitching at poker. Avengers games, not so much, Natasha wipes the floor with all of is, it's just an embar-” He coughed, rattling and gagging, adding another dribble of blood to mark his lips. “An embarrassment, really.”

“Stark-” Fury started.

“No, no, did Coulson ever tell you about the time he caught us playing strip poker in the kitchen?” Tony said, giggles creeping out between the words.

“I kept that out of the official reports for a reason,” Coulson said, blank and calm.

“Probably for the best,” Tony said, and he was laughing out loud now, high and bright and strained, hysteria caught in the tone. He heard his voice hit a panicky, thin note, and he sucked in a breath, then another, his head lolling forward on his neck. “I gotta say, never been so pleased to be sitting around in my shorts with five other men as when Natasha laid out that two pair. I mean, she'd discarded the ace, who does that? Who discards an ace and lays out a three, then a five, then a four, and you think, you think she's got a goddamn straight flush, but no, no, then it's another four, and by the time she drops the other five, and she's got two pair, it was just-”

He dissolved into giggles, tears beading in the corners of his eyes.

“Enough. Gag him.”

Tony was still gasping around bouts of the giggles as the guard wrenched his head back. “I was sitting on a fucking ace, and two cards cards worth zip, and a three and a six, and you cannot bluff Natasha, but I try, I always end up trying,” he rambled, and there were tears running down the sides of his face, his eyes darting back and forth, his breath shuddering through his frame. “'Cause Thor, the bitch, he had the two and the four I needed-”

The gag was jammed into his mouth, and he got one last punch for his troubles. This time, as he uncurled from it, he let soft, broken sounding sobs trickle out around the impediment in his mouth. Hunched over, he shuddered and huddled into himself, letting tears trickle down his cheeks

Because, honestly, people were idiots, and Tony barely had to do anything at this point. Natasha was right, bless her black little heart. People took tears to be a sign of surrender. Which was not real bright, because, honestly, he'd perfected the art of making his eyes huge and moist with unshed tears back when he was about nine. Learning to cry on cue hadn't been particularly difficult.

And it was proving to be useful.

Because now he got to sit here and listen to the entire conversation between Fury and the Hydra officer, and that was all it took to make it clear that they were dealing with Reason for Kidnapping Tony Stark number two of four (or five): Leverage.

This one wasn't used all that often, because, really, Tony was a pain in the ass. As a bargaining chip, he wasn't really worth the trouble, because the kidnapper had to find someone who wanted to keep Tony safe badly enough to give up something else.

There really weren't many people who wanted Tony safe and unharmed that much.

Nick Fury may or may not fall into that category; it was hard to tell with Fury. It wasn't as if he liked Tony, but Tony was useful, and he got the feeling sometimes that the rest of the team was kind of attached to him, and that probably held some sway. Steve would toss Fury around like a pizza if he sold Tony out, and admittedly, that was something Tony wanted to live to see.

On some level, he did kind of want to pull a Tom Sawyer and see his own funeral. If Pepper actually followed his instructions, which she wouldn't, the coward, but if she did, it would be fantastic. Especially if everyone came in costume. He let a broken laugh roll out of him, because that went well with the game he was playing, and also because, yes. If he had to die, Pepper damn well follow his instructions.

And yeah, the fact that he was thinking about his funeral and trying not to laugh, while being held hostage by an international terrorist group and fake crying, that was probably a sign of mental instability. Possibly. God, he wanted a cup of coffee, really, it wasn't the beatings, it wasn't the not-so-sexy bondage, it was the fact that these douchebags hadn't given him a frickin' drop of coffee since he'd been snagged off the streets of Vienna that made him consider this cruel and unusual punishment.

They hadn't even let him get his second cup at the shop. That was just a tease. 

And if he started seriously thinking about coffee, he'd start crying for real, so time to pay attention to what Hydra and Fury were babbling about. Seemed straight forward. If SHIELD moved against Hydra, they'd kill Tony. 

Blah blah blah, pretty boring as things went. Hydra: they might be evil, but they weren't particularly creative.

Tony let the drone of words wash over him, the back and forth, threats and veiled promises and more threats and jockeying for position, and when the Hydra officer snapped, “Enough,” Tony kind of snapped back into himself, like, oh, yeah, tied up, held by bad guys, probably gonna get punched a few more times.

Sometimes his life just fucking sucked.

“Do you want to let them know what you want on your tombstone?” the Hydra commander purred, yanking Tony's head back up.

Tony met Coulson's eyes straight on. “Steve knows,” he said, swallowing hard, knowing his eyes were red and his face was scruffy and bruised already. “We were... Just talking about it. Hey, Coulson? Have him make a change.” His lips curled up, just a little, into a smile. “Tell him to make it, 'Here lies Tony Stark. One time he made a really awesome toaster, and his friends loved him enough to listen to him whine about it.'”

Coulson nodded. “I'll see to it that he knows.”

And Hydra cut the connection.

*

Fury sighed. “Fuck,” he said. He glanced at Hill, who didn't say a word. Her tight mouth and worried eyes said it all. He jerked his head around towards Coulson. “Strip poker?”

Coulson stared at the blank screen, glad that Fury had insisted that they take a chance on the holographic interface that would make it look like he was present on the Helicarrier. “Not a chance, sir. He was trying to tell us something. Give me a copy of the transmission. One of the Avengers will be able to decode him.”

“You really think it's a good idea to show them that?” Fury said, nodding to Hill. She headed for the nearest console to begin encrypting the files. “Rogers, especially?”

“A good idea? No. But if that's what they're willing to do to him on camera? I'm not eager to leave him in their tender care any longer than strictly necessary.”

Fury stared him down, and finally nodded. “You have anything for us?”

“Barton picked up a lead. We're following up on it,” Coulson said. “As soon as we're done here, Romanov's got the quinjet ready to go.”

“Keep me updated.” Fury nodded, his shoulders tight. “Good luck, Agent.”

“Thank you, sir.” Coulson deactivated the tech, and went back to standing in a small, empty room in a nondescript SHIELD facility. He stood there for a second, exhausted. 

This was going to go so badly.


	4. Chapter 4

Coulson strode in, his expression blank and controlled. “Barton, Romanov, you're with me, everyone else, we're going to be out of here in the next half hour. Let's get ready to move.”

Steve was on his feet before the other two could even move. “What's going on?” he asked, his voice calm, but his hands were in fists at his sides.

“I have something I need them to watch,” Coulson said, and all of the Avengers were on their feet now, and he could read their faces, none of them hid themselves well when the team was together. Clint and Natasha exchanged a speaking glance, knowing full well that if Coulson was calling them, and none of the others, whatever it was, it was bad. Clint's expression was closed off, controlled, his right hand twitching where it rested against his thigh. Natasha's was cold and blank. 

Thor had hope in his eyes, hope was his default expression; despite his many years, he had less experience with death and loss, and it always caught him off guard. As great as his hope, his rage was greater, when hope was thwarted. Next to him, as close as he could be, Bruce was holding a tablet in white-knuckled hands. His eyes were dark, his jaw tight. There was fear there, fear and resignation in the slumped lines of his shoulders, in the way his throat worked; he knew just how cruel the world could be. And he hated it.

Coulson didn't want to look at Steve, didn't want to see the expression on the man's face, because he was a little of every man on his team. The hope and the resignation, the fear and the anger, all there, all held in check. Carefully masked, because he'd learned to control himself, he'd learned to control his strength, all of his strengths, and at the same time, Captain America had learned to control his very real weaknesses.

Coulson met his eyes without flinching. “You don't want to see this,” he said. “Let Barton and Romanov review it, let them find out what they can, and if I feel there's anything we've missed, then you can-”

“Thanks, Coulson, but I don't need your protection. We are wasting time.”

“Cap-”

“I'm still the team leader. If you have info, I need it,” Steve bit out, his shoulders hunched, his jaw hard, his eyes like flint. Clint gave Phil a sympathetic glance, but he fell in behind Steve, a step back and to the right, a silent show of support, and Natasha took up her position on Steve's other side.

Coulson took a deep breath. “Fine. Bruce, Thor, we're going as soon as we're done here.”

Bruce stood. “I'll see to it that the Quinjet is prepped.” He glanced at Thor. “I'd drive, but it'll be faster if you can fly us both to the airfield.”

Thor stared at the others, frustration and confusion warring on his face. Bruce touched his shoulder, and he snapped out of it. “Aye,” he said, nodding. “We should not be separated now.” 

Steve nodded at them. “Be careful,” he said to Thor, who did better when he had a task, when he had a job to do, someone to protect. He handed Bruce the Stark tech that Rhodey had delivered, never acknowledging the hand-off aloud. Bruce nodded, tucking it into his pants pocket.

They'd had time to cover the basics, in an isolated field some distance from the SHIELD vehicle where they'd left their comm units. They hadn't had time to go in depth before Coulson's phone had sent them speeding back to SHIELD's local headquarters. They weren't going to speak about it on SHIELD property, but Coulson knew he would start working as soon as they were on the Quinjet. He had no doubt that as soon as the Avengers were assembled in a place where they could speak freely, there were going to be some harsh words spoken about the tracker in Tony Stark's neck.

The information still made him a little unsteady on his feet.

Coulson waited until Thor and Bruce were through the door and gone before he shut and locked it, turning to the other three. “They involved Stark in the negotiations,” he said, staring Steve down as he spoke. Steve sucked in a breath, hard and sharp, and Coulson pretended he didn't see it. “They presented a show of force. They beat him on camera,” he said, his voice calm and unemotional. “He was awake through out, and I believe he was providing us with information while pretending to have a breakdown. I don't know what he was trying to tell us. He went through the effort, which means to me that he does believe one of you will be able to decode what he's saying.” 

Coulson went to the screen that was embedded in the wall and pulled up the file that Hill had sent to him with a couple of quick keystrokes. “He was in control of the situation enough to take the chance at attempting to pass information. We need to remember that.”

Clint threw himself into a chair, face set. “Bad?”

“Not by SHIELD standards,” Coulson said. “By civilian standards? Yes. Bad enough.”

Natasha boosted herself up onto the tabletop, loose and delicate. “He knew you were there?”

“Yes. Two way video conference.”

She snorted. “With Stark? That was stupid.”

“He said something similar,” Coulson said. He looked at Steve. “Take a seat, Cap.” It was an order, a calm, polite one, but an order nonetheless, and Steve obeyed, dropping into the only chair left on this side of the table. It was, by no mistake, between the positions that Clint and Natasha had taken.

They flanked him without really thinking about it. Because they had been through this before. For each other. For Coulson himself. For more agents than he cared to remember. He could, of course, remember every face, every name, every splash of blood shed by some junior agent caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was an itemized list of the dead buried in the back of his head, and he knew that Clint and Natasha both had their own.

And he knew that both of them would do everything possible to keep Stark from ending up on that list.

Coulson waited for them to settle before he stared the video. It was not footage he wanted to see again, but he saw them all pull back, faces closing off and postures shifting. Clint slumped low in his chair, reaching for his quiver with one hand. Natasha's fingers flexed against the tabletop, the perfect bow of her lips curling tight. Between them, Steve might as well have been carved from stone.

When the first hit landed, Tony's body snapping forward with the force of it, Steve's whole body twitched as if with a phantom pain. His indrawn breath was audible in the silent room.

Clint was rolling an arrow shaft between his fingers, over and over, his calloused fingers tracing the straight lines. “He's hurt on the right hand side,” he said, his voice tense. “Ribs. Cracked, probably.”

Natasha made a humming sound of agreement. “He's good.” She gave Clint a look. “Your training?”

“No one in SHIELD's been beaten more than me,” Clint said, teeth flashing. Coulson crossed his arms over his chest, shoulders tight at the reminder. Clint didn't look in his direction, but he slid one leg out so his foot bumped Phil's. “I gave him some tips.”

“He's good,” she repeated. 

“Not as good as me, but yeah. He's a natural at the whole distract, dissemble and dissuade thing. He's found the pattern. That's our boy. Good job, Stark.” Clint leaned forward, catching Steve's eye. He gestured at the screen with his arrow. “He's injured on the right. He's tracking the movements of the muscle, the guy doing the hitting. He waits to mouth off until the goon's on his left. He's controlling the angle of the hits, making sure they're coming from the correct side.” Clint's lips jerked up on one side, a lop-sided smirk. “He's gonna get hit. There's no way around that. The best thing he can do is control how and when the blows come, and he's doing a good job of that.”

“Fantastic job,” Natasha said. She leaned forward, her hands braced on the table on either side of her hips. Her eyes were narrowed. A particularly bad blow landed, and the men in the room flinched as one, but she didn't so much as blink. “He's in control of the situation. He needs to be less showy with it, but-” She shrugged. “Bullies. Makes the job easier.”

“Always,” Clint agreed on a snort. “Bullies are always waiting to win. The result is a foregone conclusion in their minds. They know you're going to break. They just can't wait for the when. They're anticipating their victory. Waiting with bated breath.”

“And when it happens, they don't look too closely at it. Expectations,” Natasha said on a sigh. On screen, blood spattered on the ground. “Cheek or lip?” she asked Clint.

“Cheek,” he said, nodding. “Biting into the lip's easier, but it's also way too easy to catch. He won't take the chance. Too smart.”

Steve was between them, silent, unmoving, his expression flat and cold. He was focused on Tony. Coulson knew he was hearing every word both of the agents were saying, and he knew they were saying every word to him. They both knew the score, they were making sure that Steve knew.

Clint choked on a laugh. “Strip poker?” He glanced at Natasha, eyes dancing. “Oh, can we?”

“You wander around in your boxers all the time. I don't have to work for that, Clint.” Her eyes flared. “What's he saying?”

“It's the cards. Gotta be.” 

“Rewind it,” Steve said, his voice raw but controlled. He didn't look away from the screen. “What's the sequence?”

“One, three, five, four, four, five,” Natasha said, with perfect recall. “And then one, three, six, two, four.”

“No,” Clint said. “He stipulated zip. Twice.”

“Zeroes,” Steve said. “It has to be two zeroes. If it was one, he would've made the first card a ten. He didn't. One, zero, zero, three, six, two and four.”

“If that's the case, then there's six numbers in the first half of the sequence, and seven in the second,” Coulson said, arms crossed. “Assuming that it's two sequences. And not three.”

“It's two,” Natasha said. “He made the first one one hand, but the other two were related to a single hand. He said that Thor had the cards he wanted. He needed them in his hand.”

Coulson let the video play out, watching the interplay between Fury and Stark's kidnappers. As the threats and counter threats petered out, he reached up to stop the video.

Steve caught his wrist. His fingers were firm, but just a fraction beneath painful. He didn't look in Coulson's direction, but there was a muscle twitching in his jaw. “All the way to the end,” he said, his voice soft. 

“Cap-”

Steve shook his head, and Clint met Coulson's eyes over Steve's head. Coulson shook his head, the most minute flicker of movement, and Clint recognized it anyway. He shifted forward, one broad hand on Steve's back, bracing and reassuring. Natasha didn't even look, just by the sound of shifting bodies and a few words, she knew what was happening, and she shifted over, her leg brushing against Steve's other shoulder.

“Tell him to make it, 'Here lies Tony Stark. One time he made a really awesome toaster, and his friends loved him enough to listen to him whine about it.'”

“Jesus, Tony,” Clint muttered, his free hand coming up to cover his mouth.

The video ended, and Steve glanced at Coulson. “That's all you have?”

“That's it.” Coulson met his eyes. “He was controlling the situation.”

Steve stood. “Until the internal injuries take control of the situation,” he gritted out. He sucked in a breath, and his whole body shook with it. Another, and it wasn't so violent. “The numbers.”

“Coordinates,” Natasha said, sliding down to the floor. “Clint, you're the pilot.”

He had his head tipped back, eyes closed. “Southeast Asia,” he said. He shook his head. “Easy enough to check.”

“And we're headed East,” Coulson said. “Let's move. There's a vehicle waiting for us.” He flicked a glance at Natasha and Clint, and they both grabbed their things and cut out the door without pausing. He turned to Steve. “He's fighting. And he expects us to be on his trail.”

Steve rubbed a hand over his face, his eyes closed. “Yes,” he said, taking a long, slow breath. “I know.”

Coulson paused. “Steve?” When Steve glanced at him, he gave a faint smile. “He needs you right now. We all do.”

“I know. Let's go.” He headed for the door, and paused just inside. “Coulson?”

“Yes?”

“Clint said-”

“Yes,” Coulson said, knowing what he was referring to.

“How do you survive?”

Coulson considered. “By imagining just what I'll do to anyone who's laid a finger on him,” he said, his tone almost apologetic. “But then, I'm quite bloodthirsty.”

Steve paused, his back to Coulson, every muscle defined beneath the cover of his uniform. “No,” he said at last. 

“No?”

“No, that seems just right to me.” Steve glanced back, and his eyes were like ice. “Let's go. He's waiting.”

*

Tony was not surprised when the guards came. He'd been waiting for that. Honestly, he was surprised that it had taken this long. He wasn't complaining, he was just surprised.

He was not surprised that the guards did not seem interested in having any sort of conversation with him. It was a shame, he was such a sparkling conversationalist in most hostage situations. It was like one of Fury's parties, except with fewer assault rifles in the vicinity.

Tony did his best to stay on his own two feet, pretending that he was walking and not being dragged, as he was moved through the hallways. No blindfold, which was stupid, and it just gave him more of a chance to memorize the layout. Study the building materials.

There was something he'd noticed a long time ago; most people were goddamn stupid when it came to building materials. They'd invest millions in a high tech security system, and attach it to a door made out of plywood. Throw half their budget at a computer system capable of hijacking a satellite in orbit, and plugging it into a power grid held together with duct tape and bailing wire.

One of his professors at MIT had started and ended his lecture with a single line, a single reminder: Complex systems fail in complex manners. You didn't have to destroy the strongest part of a structure, of a machine, of a system, you only had to target the weakest point.

And when you had a marble wall with titanium supports, but your electrical wires were stuck to the outside with a cheap plastic housing, well, it was pretty damn easy to pinpoint the weak spots.

As they yanked him around a corner, he pretended to stumble, and looked up. Pipes were exposed. They looked like they were as old as the building. Ventilation, water pipes, a few more that might carry steam or chemicals or gas, hard to say. But the ones he wanted were obvious, and they were exactly what he wanted.

It was pretty safe to say that he was in a second rate facility. Everything, from the staff to the building, to the location, made that clear. This wasn't a building that Hydra had built with super heroes and villainous science in mind, this was a compound that they had either bought or just plain appropriated. Good enough for what they were trying to do, because they were in the ass end of nowhere with a local government either bribed or threatened into not paying any attention.

The place was not designed to hold Tony Stark. That was pretty much clear.

The cell they'd dumped him in on arrival had been small, dank, and smelled faintly of mold, but it was comfortable enough. They'd stripped him of his shoes and his belt, and he cursed the loss of the majority of his tools. Starting from scratch was enough to piss him off, but he'd used them to good advantage when he could, and he had to believe Coulson had picked up on his hints. Coulson was usually good for that.

He'd managed to get a few hours sleep, despite the ache in his ribs and the faint pounding of a caffeine withdrawal headache. He'd risked the food they'd given him, because he hadn't had much of a choice. Food was a necessity, and the water, at least, had arrived in a sealed bottle.

There was a chance it was poisoned, or drugged, and he had to take the chance anyway.

As the guards dragged him forward, Tony mapped the location of his cell based on the rest of the facility, making a mental layout of the corridors, cross referencing with the views from the high, cloudy white windows and the stairwells that fed through the center of the building, damp and poorly lit. He watched for the ventilation grids low on each wall and the drains in the floors, necessary in a climate hit by monsoons.

Tony filed everything away. He had about two thirds of a plan in place when the guards pulled him to a stop in front of a higher ranking officer. “Perhaps you'd care to make yourself useful,” he said to Tony with a faint smirk.

“Perhaps,” Tony said, letting his weight rest fully on the guard's hands. “Not likely, though.”

“We'll see.” The officer turned to the door. It was flanked on either side by wide, cloudy windows, the same as he'd seen around the rest of the building, that allowed those in the hall to keep a watch on the workers inside. A dozen or so men and women in lab coats and coveralls were clustered around ancient looking computers and pouring over stacks of paper.

As the door opened, every head in the room came up. Then went back down.

Interesting. These were not true believers. It might well be that he wasn't the only researcher being held here against his will. Tony tried to pay attention to what the officer was saying. “We do have someone coming in to correct the guidance systems, but there seems to be no reason not to have you take a look,” he said, smirking. “It seems simple enough for someone of your... Unique capabilities.”

Tony sighed under his breath. It was reason for kidnapping Tony Stark number three: To have something built.

Really, this was not a good choice. This was an amazingly poor choice. Mostly because he was one step above MacGuyver when it came to being able to kill people with ordinary household objects. And unlike MacGuyver, he had no objections to making, or wielding, guns. Basically, Tony Stark was not the guy you wanted to trap in a scientific facility. Not if you wanted to live.

“Let's make this clear,” the Hydra officer said. “Either you can behave yourself, and we'll allow you to work, or we can spend our days in significantly less pleasant activities until we no longer require you. After all, there are other ways to extract the information that we're interested in.” He stepped in close, and Tony met his eyes for a second before letting his gaze drop. The officer chuckled. “Yes, perhaps you shouldn't be so eager to push your luck.”

He grabbed Tony by the back of his neck and jerked him in close. “Work hard. I should hate to lose such a useful bargaining chip.” His gloved fingers tightened, hard enough to leave bruises, and Tony winced. “But then again, it would be some time before they might demand proof of life again. I'll take the risk.”

Pointing, he continued. “They will show you what we're working on. Don't try any tricks. Consider this a test run. If you misbehave now, you will be punished. Make yourself useful, and you might yet live.” 

Chuckling, he shoved Tony away and strode out the door. “Welcome to the team, Mr. Stark!”

The door slammed shut behind him with a metallic clang.

*

“Coordinates 13° 54' 45N 100° 36' 24E,” Jarvis confirmed. “Location of Bangkok International Airport.”

Clint was behind the controls of the Quinjet. “And that matches the movement of the tracker?” he asked, running through the safety checks with brutal efficiency.

“Last confirmed location was moving in that direction. It is doubtful that the airport is sir's actual destination,” Jarvis said.

“Why not?” Thor asked. He was watching out the windows, eyes narrowed. Mjolnir hung at his side, his fingers flexing on the handle.

“Because it has a military aspect,” Coulson said. “It's an unreasonable risk to take.”

“However, because of that military presence, it is a location sir has visited repeatedly. If he discovered that he was being moved to Thailand, that is a set of coordinates that he would have had memorized. Especially since he was taking the risk of providing the information to you in front of his captors, the number needs not be exact. I can begin focusing my efforts there.”

“Do it,” Steve said. “Is there anything else you can tell us, Jarvis?”

There was a long pause. “The tracker may not last all that much longer,” Jarvis said. “It is old, and it wasn't a functional prototype when it was installed. After roughly thirty years, it has a chance of shifting, which would cause it to stagger and flicker on and off the search grid as the charge dwindled.”

“You're fucking kidding me,” Clint gritted out.

“Clint,” Coulson said.

“No, I'm with him on this,” Bruce said. He was bent over the scrolling data, his eyes bright behind the slightly oily lenses of his glasses. “Jarvis, is this being energized by the myelin sheath of the spinal cord?”

“Yes,” Jarvis said, his voice subdued.

Muttering something obscene sounding under his breath, Bruce jerked his glasses off. Steve glanced in his direction. “That's bad?”

“It's certainly not good.” He grimaced. “Myelin carries the synopses from the brain through the nervous system. If it's damaged, it doesn't grow back. If the myelin is interrupted, or damaged, it can result in paralysis. Jamming a shard of metal up against it-” Bruce frowned down at the data, his fingers tangling around the stems of his glasses. “It's inadvisable, Cap. Especially if he was still growing when it was done. He's lucky it hasn't moved or been jammed into his spinal cord.”

“Wonderful,” Steve said, because he was at the end of his rope, he really was. He couldn't go back in time and shake Howard Stark until the man's teeth rattled, couldn't ask him what went wrong, why he'd done this, but in the end, really, had it been all that different when Steve knew him?

What kind of odds had he been facing when they sealed him in that casket?

“So we're on a tight time frame, but we don't know how long we actually have, to save a teammate who may or may not be capable of helping himself, heading for a location that may or may not be the correct place?” Natasha said. “Sounds about par for the course for us.”

“Hold onto your hats and your shorts,” Clint said. “We're flying for speed, not grace. It's going to be a fast, hard ride.”

“Story of your life,” Natasha said.

“Nat, light of my life, you've never had any complaints before.”

“Clint, you never listened.” Still, she belted herself in. “Let's go. Before Stark manages to spark an international incident.”

Steve couldn't hold back a smile. “Let's go, Clint.”

*

The science staff looked like a bunch of whipped dogs.

Which was, really, what they were. Tony wandered around the lab, checking data, checking computers, checking cabinets, running his fingers across the material of the windows, eyes flicking as he cataloged what they had to work with. It wasn't much. He would really like to have more by way of chemicals. Mostly, the lab was full of outdated electronic equipment, some minor metal and plastic alloys, and scared people who didn't want to meet his eye.

Seemed that Hydra, at least, had learned the folly of giving Tony access to anything that might be considered flammable.

He threw himself down onto a chair, letting it spin in lazy circles with the force of his landing. His arms folded over the back, he braced his chin on his wrists, eyes tracing the ceiling. Nothing. No cameras. At least not any visible ones. Probably not considered a necessity, the large windows overlooking the workspace were guarded, or at least, men had been posted there. How much 'guarding' they were doing was a matter of debate.

Mostly they seemed to be leaning up against the windows, against the walls, facing away from the science staff Their presence alone was enough to keep the staff in line.

Yeah. Whipped dogs.

“So, I know the job market is in the toilet, but seriously. These idiots must have a hell of a benefits package to make it worth putting up with this hellhole,” he said, his tone offhand. He reached out with one hand and bumped a mouse as he swung by. “What is it, dental? Prescription plan? I know those can be kind of important, depending on your health requirements. I'm not going to assume that they have on-site day care because, whew, no. No, that would just be a very bad idea.”

The room was still. One thin woman bent over her work, her shoulders hunched up around her ears. A man blinked behind the heavy lenses of old-fashioned looking glasses, the fluttering of his eyes too fast and too hard, a nervous tic he couldn't control. Tony let his eyes roll over each of the room's occupants, looking for the one he needed. All of them were silent, and most of them looked scared or worn down to the point of not caring any longer.

One young man, painfully skinny with a shock of blonde hair, met Tony's eyes evenly. Tony's lips twitched. Bingo.

“What, you the last hired?” Tony asked him, making the boy jump. “Yeah. You. Beanpole.” He grinned, flicking his hand over the computer keyboard. “Wow. Everything here is from, what the early nineties?” He whistled out from between his teeth. “Is this Windows 98? Oh, God, it is. Wow. I'm just embarrassed.” He grabbed a pen, stabbed it in the boy's direction. “What, did you answer a vaguely legit sounding Monster.com listing? Is that how you got here? And now you've got no passport, and no money, and no way to contact the outside world?”

The kid chuckled, just a little, but it was enough. It was a sign of life. “Pretty much,” he said, shaking his head. He grabbed a notebook and scribbled a small notation. “You know what they say. You can't quit your first job right out of school too quick, or you'll be labeled a job hopper.”

Tony laughed out loud, and damn, that hurt his ribs, but still. Yes. “This place is a resume stain anyway,” he said, glancing around. “No way that the HR department's going to respond to queries, other than to ask where you're applying, because you skipped your exit interview.”

“The exit interview is a bullet to the base of the skull,” the kid said, his mouth twisting.

“So it's probably best if you skip it,” Tony agreed. “Still, you seem smart. Fast.” He focused his attention on the computer, eyes flicking as he made a delicate hole in the code and slipped through. Jesus. He hadn't had to hack this particular OS since before the turn of the century. This was some serious old skool shit. “Recent graduate, hard at work, it's fine. All you need to do is find another job.”

“Uh-huh,” the kid said. “You offering?” 

“As a matter of fact, I am.” Tony found a hole and exploited it with a sense of giddy joy. He spun the chair, facing the room again. “Here's the deal. You don't want to be here. I sure as HELL do not want to be here. I'm going to be out of here. I could use some help. You help me, and I guarantee you a job at StarkIndustries. SHIELD will get you back to the States in return for your cooperation, and hell, they may want first dibs on some of you, but I can promise you a return trip, a clean record, and a well-paying job.”

The boy stared at him. “Are you out of your mind?”

Tony held out his hand. “Hi. Tony Stark. I'd give you a business card if I still had one on me, my CEO had some made up that answers that very question. She says it's a joke, but it's a lot of fun to hand out cards that say, Tony Stark: Yes, as a matter of fact, I am out of my mind.”

The blue eyes were now on Tony's hand. Hope warred with resignation. “You're going to get yourself killed.”

Tony kept his hand out. “Let's put it to you straight. My team is coming. Now it is possible that I'm going to kick it before they show up, but let me tell you something about SHIELD. They don't like to lose. They really don't like it. They are brutal when they win, but when they lose, you've heard of a salted earth policy? Burn it to the ground, salt the ashes so nothing will grow again? SHIELD considers that to be a dangerous concession to their enemies. They go with a nuke the earth policy. 

“Because nothing's growing if the land itself has been removed from the topographical map. You don't have to waste your salt if the location your enemy used to occupy is now a smoking crater.”

Tony's lips twitched. “That's SHIELD. There are three members of my team that were considered a little too extreme for SHIELD. My team? That's where SHIELD sends the ones that they consider are just dangerously unstable.” He paused. “That's saying something.

“These people, my people, are coming. You have two choices. You can be on my side, and we can be outside of this compound, running like we fucking mean it, when they show up, or you can be here. Waiting to become a stain on the forest floor. Because there will be tanks. And rocket launchers. And a Hulk.”

The boy started to laugh. “Well, Christ, when you put it that way.” He grabbed Tony's hand and shook it, his hand shaking, but his grip firm and strong.

Tony grinned at him. “Anyone else?” he asked the room, and the scientists were exchanging glances, eyes wary and body language closed. 

A tiny woman of Asian descent raised her hand, casting a nervous glance at the windows. “I'm in,” she said, her voice soft. “I prefer to go out fighting.”

A couple of others nodded, and just like that, the room fell into line. Tony glanced back at the computer. “Good,” he said. “So let's talk plans.” He pulled up the root files with a cheerful whistle. “Well, this is nonsense.” He glanced over. “I need to see everyone's hands. Up, palms towards you, backs towards me, please, ladies and gents.”

There was confusion, and a few rolled eyes, but every hand came up to chest level. Tony stabbed a finger around the room. “You, you and you,” he said. “Purses. Let me see. One of you has what I need.” As they headed for their benches and desks, he nodded at two others. “Go work at the stations in front of the windows,” he said. “If it looks like any of the guards outside are going to bother looking in here, or even wake up, let us know.”

They exchanged a glance, but they went.

The computer was scrolling the data, and he flicked his eyes over the files. “I need more information about the upper and lower levels, I haven't been there, anyone?” Two of the older looking scientists nodded. “I need you to look at these plans. Tell me if they're accurate, any place you remember seeing guards, or additional security features, note that.” He grabbed the pages that were printing off next to him, and handed them over. “I'm going to make a list of what I need. Tell me if there's a chance of getting a hold of it. Without getting caught.”

Shipping manifests, oh, that was nice. Tony resisted the urge to cackle as he scrolled through the data. “Here we go. Let's-” His eyes narrowed. “Nice. Nice, nice, nice.” He stuck a pen in his teeth. “How do they move supplies in and out?” he asked. “Does anyone know?”

Everyone shook their heads. “Our stuff is all theoretical, so we don't have much coming in or out. My roommate, or cellmate, if you'd prefer,” one of the older men said, leaning over the pages, “works in a different lab. They do take shipments. I can ask him.”

“Good. Do that.” Tony glanced at the purses that had been placed next to him. He found what he needed in the second one. “Anyone else have any more of this?” he said, holding it up, using his body for cover. Two heads nodded. “Bring it tomorrow. We need as much of it as we can, but be subtle.”

He turned the screen towards the group, and everyone crowded around. “What's this?” he asked, tapping the schedule. “This arrival?”

One of the women spoke, her voice a thin thread of sound. “They were bringing someone in to finish the guidance systems,” she said. “Not you. They've been planning for this guy for a while. I heard a couple of the drivers talking about it when I was down on the loading dock last week.”

“You go to the loading dock? The main one?”

She nodded, her face haggard. “I've been here for years. Longer than most of the guards, so they don't question me much, and I smoke.” Her hands were shaking. “The last base commander hated litter, so the smokers go down there. There's a place set aside.”

Tony's eyebrows were scraping his hairline. “You are kidding me,” he said, his voice flat. She shook her head. “We absolutely are in the boonies here.” He snagged the plans from the bench. “Show me where, and the path you use to get there.”

She took them, bending over the pages, one hand tucking her greying hair behind her ear. “Here,” she said, tapping on the schematic, and Tony glanced over her shoulder. “At this intersection.”

“Good,” he said. He looked back at the computer. “I've got a few other things to pull.” He tapped the blank pages next to the printer. “Do me a favor. You've had jobs before this. Write up a simple employment contract, get all the clauses down. I'll sign them all.” She nodded.

Tony glanced back at the screen. His plan was taking effect. The incoming guest would likely be the lynchpin they needed. Access to the loading docks, the manifests, the wiring and plumbing schematic he was printing now, the security stations on the lower floors, the supplies he was gathering. He tossed the newest piece of his puzzle in the air and caught it.

Innocuous and capable of toppling the place. Wasn't that always the way?

Now, the trick would be getting the word out. He was not looking forward to making a break for it through the Thai jungle. He really wasn't. Be so much easier if Coulson was waiting for them with a helicopter. That would be so nice. Really, really nice.

The computer, of course, was not networked with the outside world.

Which didn't mean much, they had to have an outside connection. That was a foregone conclusion. And there was always someone in the IT department, or someone who was attractive to someone in the IT department, who would wiggle that one little harmless program on there. Because really, upper management wouldn't find out, and that Farmville addiction was a powerful monkey on the back.

He went through the system, silent and fast. No Facebook, dammit. Twitter, Tumblr, even Myspace came up empty, too. He checked for FourSquare, just for giggles, and also, because that would be a hell of a way to reveal his location. “Tony Stark just became mayor of Creepy Second-Rate Hydra Base!”

Not quite.

He closed his eyes, thought hard, and made one last try. Bingo. Bingo, and double bingo. That was just what he needed. Well, no. Tony needed this, and he needed someone on the other side of the program who'd be logging into their account regularly enough to catch the alterations he was about to make.

He glanced at the computer's clock, calculated the time zone change. Luckily, he knew the perfect person.

*

“JANE!”

Dr. Jane Foster nearly jumped out of her skin. “Jesus, Darce, what the hell is wrong with you? I could've ruined a week's worth of work if I'd dropped this,” she said, glaring over her shoulder at her best friend and lab assistant. Moving with care, she set the latest sample of Asgardian trouble on the lab bench and backed away. “What is your problem, crazy girl?”

“Have you been messing with my iTunes again?”

“I love how you say 'again' like I ever messed with your iTunes. Besides, I don't know your password, you change it like every three days.”

“I maintain proper security, Jane, it is important that you safeguard the things that are most important to you, and I don't trust these SHIELD bastards.” Darcy did that side to side narrow eye thing that made Jane think that she looked like a demented squirrel. 

“Yes, well, that aside, any reason why you're accusing me of leet levels of haxxor today?” Jane shrugged of her labcoat and threw it on the chair, her shoulders aching and her neck stiff.

“Because I'd never willingly put 'The Star-Spangled Man' on my download list?”

Jane's head snapped around. “What? Show me.”

Five minutes later, she was staring down at the download queue on Darcy's computer. Her heart was pounding and she was fumbling for her phone.

From top to bottom, the song titles read, 'Tell,' 'The Star-Spangled Man,' 'I'm Safe,' 'Coming Home,' 'One Night in Bangkok,' 'I Think I've Had Enough,' 'Making Plans,' 'Tomorrow morning,' 'I've Got Some Outside Help,' 'Save the People,' 'I Wrote You a Letter,' 'Read All About It.' And the last one on the list was Patty Griffin's 'Tony.'

When her call connected at last, she cleared her throat. “Thor, it's Jane. Can you think of any reason why Tony Stark would hack Darcy's iTunes account to leave a cryptic message via song titles? A message that seems to be aimed at Steve?”


	5. Chapter 5

Steve did his best to pretend that his hands weren't shaking as he leaned over Coulson's shoulder. Thor was still on the phone with Jane and Darcy, heaping praise on them for their cleverness. 

“We think it's actually from Tony?” he asked Phil, who nodded, just once.

“Yes, IS is tracking the IP address back, but he all but threw a StarkIndustries stamp of approval on the code he used to get past her password. I'm not as versed in this as some, but we've got people who's only job it is to study the way he does things and keep him from doing them to us.”

“I don't want that job,” Clint said.

“No one wants that job, Barton, it is the job they give to the tech staff that annoy Fury the most. Or the ones that seem to be dangerously unstable.” Coulson leaned over, studying Darcy's iTunes. “Also the fact that someone put a credit of five thousand dollars onto her account, yeah, that's Stark.”

Steve read the song titles for about the twentieth time. He resisted the urge to touch the screen, to pretend that he could get some sort of comfort from the second hand contact. “Bangkok. We were right about the coordinates.”

“Bangkok and help,” Coulson pointed out. “If they can pry the information out as to the origin of the login, we'll be able to pinpoint where he is. Hopefully in time to meet his time frame. We're assuming he's talking local time, and we're going to be cutting it close.”

“Will they make it in time?”

“Possibly.” Coulson glanced up, eyebrows arched. “Will Jarvis? Yes.”

Steve grinned. “You let him into SHIELD's systems?”

“I'm amused that you think he wasn't already in there, Cap. All I did was give him a nudge in the right direction.” He paused. “Jarvis and I have an understanding.” 

“Who here is fucking TERRIFIED by that particular thought?” Clint called from the pilot's seat. “Between Coulson and Jarvis, they could rule the world.”

“Thank you, Clint,” Coulson said, smiling. “Jarvis'll make sure that SHIELD gets done what needs to get done, and hopefully get us some backup. Because we're about to cause an international incident, and I'd sure like Hill on my side when it comes to smoothing that over.”

“We've got activity in that neck of the woods,” Natasha said, her fingers flying over her own tablet. “A lot of it. Nothing major that we've ever been able to pinpoint, but there's been Hydra activity all over that part of the world. I'm trying to narrow down the possibilities now.”

“Any information you can get me about places to avoid would be good, too,” Clint said. “I'd prefer not to set off any alarm bells, Nat. Or get shot at.”

“We're going to get shot at, Clint. Don't be a baby about it.”

“Can we get shot at less? Is that too much to ask?” he asked, tilting his head back towards them. There was a quirked smile on his face, but his eyes were steady. Thor was in the co-pilot's seat, staring out at the horizon with focused intent. He took his co-pilot duties seriously, but it had taken a few flights before he could be talked out of the fact that unlike the cars, the Quinjet did not have a radio.

Bruce glanced up, raising a hand like a little boy in school. “I second the 'shot at less' request,” he said, with a faint smile. “Please.”

“Only because you asked, Doc,” Natasha said, her lips twitching.

“Oh, sure, we know who's the favorite around here,” Clint groused, but his voice was full of amusement. “Banner, I've got some strange readings here, I'm going to feed them back to you?”

“Let me see what you've got,” Bruce said, adjusting his glasses as Clint sent the information to his tablet.

Steve took the tablet that Natasha handed him, his shoulders set. Until they had a more focused plan of attack, all he could do was learn as much as he could. Anything to make him feel less useless.

*

The guards that came to get Tony the next morning handcuffed him.

Wonderful.

After all, he'd been left pretty much unshackled since he'd arrived. Changes in routine, changes in behavior, he hated adjusting for them. Something had changed and he didn't like having to pay attention to it, because if he'd been wrong, he'd need to change his plans and he had twenty plus people in on this plan and more than that depending on it to get them out. 

Tony was pretty good at changing plans on the fly. His newly minted co-conspirators, probably not so much.

It wasn't a long trip to the lab, but it was long enough for Tony to consider all the possibilities. Most of them were pretty bad. When the guards half dragged, half threw him through the door, it was clear that 'pretty bad' was not what he was looking at.

The Hydra officer was holding a folder in one hand, and his leather gloves in the other. He gave Tony a pleasant smile. “So, Mr. Stark. I'm told you have plans to leave our company today?”

Fantastic.

Tony kept his face carefully blank. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“That's strange. All the others do.” The officer smiled, a shark bite of teeth flashing. “I was paid a visit last night. Your new friends had a change of heart. It would appear that they decided against following your lead, Mr. Stark.”

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the file onto the workbench, sending pages and plans and layouts sliding in all directions. Tony's sharp, angled writing was visible on a few. Tony gritted his teeth, his jaw hard as a rock, but he managed a smile. “I don't know what you're talking about,” he repeated.

The officer snapped his fingers, and one of the Hydra guards stepped forward, dragging the thin blonde boy with him. The kid was pale as milk, his blue eyes huge in his face. He was visibly shaking. “He told us everything,” the officer said.

Tony stared at the tech, who avoided his eyes. Harris. The boy's name was Harris. “He's lying,” Tony said, calm.

“One of you is. We do not believe it's him.” The officer snapped his fingers. “Take him upstairs. It seems that since Mr. Stark has chosen to take advantage of our hospitality, we should no longer extend it.” He gave Tony a cold smile. “Perhaps when you're more... Amenable to your situation, we'll be able to put you to work again. But for now-” He nodded to the guards, who yanked Tony around and dragged him towards the door.

Jerking against their grip, Tony tried to twist back around. To scan the room. He made eye contact with the two women by the door, clutching cigarette packets and lighters in their hands, at the man bent over a tangle of wires with a soldering iron, to the tiny woman hugging a clipboard against her chest. To Harris, the traitor who'd sold them all out, or maybe he hadn't gone alone, Tony wasn't sure, it was better if he didn't know.

“You're a fucking idiot,” he said, his voice cold and resigned. The kid flinched, head down. “We could've gotten out of here.” The guards pulled hard on his arms, their grips painful and bruising, and Tony struggled, kicking out with all of his strength, rage morphing over his face. “We could've gotten out of here!” he yelled. 

Harris went back to his computer terminal, thin shoulders bent forward, hands shaking on the keys. “We all would've died,” he said, and his voice was small and trembling.

“Not if you had followed orders!” Tony got one bare foot on the ground and lunged forward, pulling against the guards' hands. “You fucking idiot!”

The officer backhanded him across the face, and Tony rocked back in the guards' grip. “Take him upstairs,” he said, stripping of his gloves. “To the interrogation room.”

He glanced around the lab, and the researchers avoided his gaze. “Go about your day,” he said. “Nothing has changed. Nothing has happened. Do not get above yourselves again.” Turning on his heel, he stalked from the lab. The guards dragged Tony out behind him.

Tony spat as he was manhandled out the door, blood splattering on the tile floor. “Fuck you!” he yelled, and there was no response to that.

*

All 'interrogation' rooms looked the same. At least, they did when you were the one being interrogated.

Tony sat in the rickety chair, his hands cuffed behind him, staring blankly at the far wall. The officer had left the guard outside for now, but Tony got the feeling that the muscle-bound creep would be joining them once the heavy stuff got started.

And judging by the blood stained tools lined up on the nearby table, the heavy stuff was going to be happening sooner rather than later.

Up until this point, it was clear that the officer was just playing, a cat with a mouse between his paws, his grin wide and grotesque. Tony didn't much care about the idiot's sadistic impulses; it passed the time. He felt the seconds ticking in the staccato syllables of the man's questions, the flicker of the minute hand keeping time with the brutal swing of the officer's arm.

Time was measured in heartbeats, and questions, and pain.

“I gave you a chance, Mr. Stark,” the officer said.

“I make my own chances,” Tony said, and got another slap across the face for his trouble. He flexed his jaw, wincing. “Sometimes they don't work out.”

The officer gave a dark, mocking laugh. “Do they ever work out, Mr. Stark?”

“More than I should hope.” Tony looked up at the man, not really interested, but baiting him anyway. “How about you? What chance did you take to end up in this backwater? Not exactly the forefront of any organization's list of locations on the rise.”

“You'd be surprised.”

“Actually, I wouldn't, I mean, second rate all the way, facility and staff and-” Tony's words ended on a grimace as the officer's hand clamped down on his neck, thumb digging into his Adam's apple. He gagged, and sucked in a deep breath through his nose. For an instant, his vision swam, then clarified, and he blinked at the man's wrist. At his watch.

At the time.

“Do you have any change to what you want on your gravestone, Mr. Stark?”

Tony took a deep breath, his eyes flicking down at the watch that was now right in front of his face. “Yeah. Five, four-

The officer's eyes narrowed, and his grip on Tony's throat loosened, just a fraction. “What?”

“Three, two, one.” He grinned. “You lose.”

The sprinklers went off.

Which was unfortunate because he wasn't sure if they'd just never been used, or tested, or if the water was just being drawn from some non-potable source, because it was brown. The color of a chai latte. Cream brown and oh, God, he needed to not think about that, because the Hydra officer was jerking around, caught off guard, confused, but that wasn't going to last long.

Tony threw himself forward, and he slammed into the man's body, knocking him down, Tony's weight and force pushing him along to crash into the ground. The officer's head hit the concrete with the sound of an overripe cantaloupe being hit with a baseball bat, a hollow, slightly squishy thud. Tony rolled to the side, flinging his body forward and sliding through the loop of his arms, getting his bound hands in front of him, his bare feet slipping on the wet floor.

The officer didn't move.

For an instant, Tony stood there, fists linked together in front of him, feet spread in a braced posture, waiting, but other than the continued rush of water, there was nothing. No movement, no sound. He shifted forward, stuck a foot under the guy and flipped him onto his stomach. There was a pained groan, but he didn't stir, and there was blood in the back of his hair.

Tony crouched down, digging in the man's pockets as someone started pounding on the door. He pulled the sidearm from the officer's holster, sticking it in his waistband, and grabbed the taser from the man's belt loop. The doorknob rattled, and Tony grabbed for the handcuff key. He only bothered to unlock one of the cuffs, leaving the other dangling from his wrist as he snagged a weapon and sprinted for the door, his feet kicking up coffee colored splashes as he went. Pressing himself up against the wall, he sucked in a breath, blinking away the water.

The door opened, and he stepped forward as the guard leaned in. He slammed the taser into the guard's neck, above the collar of his uniform and followed it with an elbow to the cheekbone. The guy went down with a faint thud, and Tony grabbed him, pulling him back into the interrogation room. He kicked the door shut.

“Fucking idiots,” Tony mumbled, and breathing hurt, moving hurt, everything hurt, and this was the worst vacation he'd ever taken, the next time that Fury got a bright idea to have Tony go out and schmooze with his peers, Tony was reserving the right to punch the man in the face. Hill would put a bullet in him for it, but at this point? Totally worth it.

Everything was slow, everything was harder than it should've been, because the water was still pounding down, and it made the guard's body heavy, it made it a nightmare to strip his uniform from his limp frame. Tony struggled with the belt and the buttons, but managed to get it off, and on over his own clothes. Luckily the guy had some bulk; even wet, the uniform went on easily enough, and he stowed his own things in the outer pockets for easy access. 

God bless Hydra for being fucking morons and choosing all encompassing uniforms with face-covering helmets. Idiots.

Tony slapped the handcuffs on them, one cuff for each of the men, and took a minute to tie the two of them together with rope from the 'ye olde torture implement' table. Pulling hard on the knots and slapping a piece of tape over each of their mouths, he made sure that he'd removed all the potential weapons and ways to call for help before he pulled the helmet on and scrambled for the door.

Time was still ticking along in his head. Still marked by heartbeats and pain and now the steady splash of water on concrete.

Armed now with a rifle, a taser, a handgun and a lot of rage, he shot back out into the hall, yanking the door shut and locking it. Passing by a few men who were running in the other direction, yelling through the sluice of dirty water, Tony shouldered his weapon and headed for the central control booth.

It was isolated at the turn of the corridor, the only spot not covered by sluicing water, probably to protect the electrical equipment inside. Two sides faced out, overlooking the halls, the usual scarred and pitted windows providing a view of the single guard. He seemed to be struggling with one of the control panels, and Tony pounded on the door, getting his attention. The man glanced up, and Tony gestured at the door, making loud, impatient sounds inside his helmet. The guard shook his head, sticking to protocol, and that was annoying. Taking a deep breath, Tony stepped back, pulled the bottle of nail polish remover from his jacket pocket, and splashed it across the window overlooking the booth.

Scratched and abraded ancient polycarbonate, meet acetone. 

Tony raised the butt of his rifle and slammed it forward with all the strength he could muster, and the bulletproof glass shattered, the acetone finding every scratch and flaw and weakening the structure to the point where the blunt force impact was enough to bring it down.

Tony was through the broken window and swinging the rifle like a club before the guard could get over his shock. A second later, he hit the ground with a thud. Reaching over him, Tony studied the board, and hit the general alarm.

The klaxon was loud, and startling, and combined with the still gushing water, very disconcerting. “Time to evacuate,” Tony said with a manic grin.

Running his hands across the panels, Tony released the electric locks that controlled the central stairwells and the outside access, and cut the power to the security system, the cameras going dark like dominoes falling. He jerked his head to the side. Communications. There had to be something here-

A shout in guttural German had him ducking, and a burst of rifle fire hit above his head, splintering a monitor and throwing glass shards everywhere. Cursing, Tony pushed himself back so he was behind the reinforced door. Shots peppered the wall, and Tony flinched down.

Gunfights were so much easier when he had the fucking armor.

Another burst of semi-automatic fire, and Tony curled in on himself, covering his head with his arms until the debris stopped falling, because he did have a rifle, and a sidearm, and despite that, he was not looking forward to trying to get a shot off before he ended up getting shot.

There was a shout, and a scream, and a thud. Tony brought the pistol up, balanced in his palms. 

“Disaster report!” a voice called.

“It's a fucking disaster,” Tony said, rolling to his feet. A quick glance at the unhelmeted forms in Hydra uniforms and he lowered his pistol and yanked his helmet off. “Jesus, Harris!”

Harris peered over the edge of the broken window, his face tight and worried. After a quick glance, he waved the other two off. “We got this, go.” He turned back to Tony. “Did you know tasers actually work?” he said, blinking. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I did, and yes, I am.” Tony shook his head. He threw the door open and the two of them grabbed the unconscious guard and dragged him inside. Tony pulled the roll of duct tape he'd stolen from the interrogation room at Harris. “Tape up their arms, legs and mouths,” he said, and the boy went to work.

Running his hands over the consoles, Tony did his best to disable anything he was sure they wouldn't need. “Done,” Harris said from behind him, scrambling to his feet.

“Get over here and help me find the comm equipment, I'd like to send out a general distress call so SHIELD can come take care of the rest of it. We're in the fucking dark ages when it comes to tech here.”

The skinny boy, clad in a way too big Hydra uniform, shifted over to stand next to Tony. He was pale and his eyes were huge under a wet fringe of blonde bangs, but his hands were steady and his movements were sure. “Seriously, are you okay?”

“Seriously, I'm fine, and seriously, good job down there.”

“Your plans are fucking stupid, you know that, right? People have told you that before, haven't they?”

Tony shrugged. “I had to get to the third floor somehow, and we didn't have any better ideas. Besides, after that, they left the rest of you alone, didn't they?”

“Yeah, yeah, it was still a fucking stupid plan.” Harris pointed. “I think it's that one. The one with the bullet wound.”

“Fantastic,” Tony groused. “Really, though, good job. Have you considered a life of being a super secret government agent? I'm going to tell Coulson about you. Here. Hold this, and-” He pried up the control board. “Yeah, we should be able to...”

“Don't tell anyone about me. No. I don't want to be a man in black, I look lousy in black, what're you- Don't!” Harris yelped, but his hands were full, so Tony ripped the wires out anyway. “Jesus! You're going to electrocute yourself, and I don't want to watch!”

“Wuss.” Tony wrapped one of the wires around his hand and pulled, sending a shower of sparks across the console. “Let's just, yeah, this'll be easy enough...” He leaned in, tracing the ancient paths. “Hell. Put a couple of bucks into your tech, people.”

“I take it back,” Harris said. “Your plans are stupid and suicidal.” He juggled the metal plates Tony had handed him. “You were supposed to wait until we got up here, you know.”

“Not really. I just told you that so you'd agree to the concept. Plan is sometimes need to know.” Tony gritted his teeth. “Evacuation in progress?”

“Yeah, moving fast downstairs. It helps because we were right, they split the force to cover the airfield because of their contractor coming in. We've got a skeleton staff, and most of them don't seem to know what to do. The scientists and techs being held here have drilled for emergencies more than the guards have, so they're just following our lead and pretending they're in charge.”

“As long as they still have guns, they're still in charge,” Tony said. He finished his adjustments. It wasn't pretty, but he'd managed to patch the general alarm into the communications system. They were broadcasting the klaxon on a frequency that SHIELD commonly used, and hopefully, that would be loud enough to get someone's attention. “Do not underestimate the importance of a bunch of morons with guns.”

“Gotcha.” Harris took a deep breath. “Ready?”

“Ready.” Tony yanked his helmet back on, and headed out into the corridor, with Harris tight on his heels. “Where'd the rest of your team go?”

“Downstairs.” Harris was breathing a little hard, maybe because of the water, maybe because of the strain, Tony wasn't sure. But he was keeping up, and it wasn't like Tony was moving all that quickly, either. “There's a couple of labs that aren't accounted for yet.”

Tony opened the main stairwell door, rifle at the ready. There were people using it, civilian and Hydra alike, but everyone was moving down. No one seemed interested in checking the upper levels. Still, once Harris stepped through, he fumbled in his pocket for the keyring he'd lifted off the guard. Shoving one in at random, he gave it a twist and then slammed the butt of his rifle against it, snapping off the end and jamming the lock. “Go check on them, okay? We do not have much time before someone realizes that the boss is not making the decisions here, and I want everyone out before that.”

“Tony?”

“Yeah?”

“What happens if we get outside and SHIELD isn't waiting for us?”

“They'll be there. There is no way they won't be there. You'll understand once you meet Coulson.” He shouldered his rifle and started down as quickly as he thought he could go. Breathing should not be this much of an effort. “Let's go.”

Harris nodded, pushing his helmet back into place. “Don't tell Coulson about me.”

“Kid, you are going into a SHIELD barracks and never coming out.” Tony grinned as he worked his way down the stairs, Harris right on his heels. “Get the rest of them and meet us at the docks. We're out of here as soon as we can get the trucks loaded.”

*

Down on the main loading dock, armed Hydra grunts and scared looking tech and science personnel were running in all directions. A few of the goons, in full armor and helmet, were waving the staff onto a couple of transport trucks, a harried looking woman in a labcoat checking names off on a clipboard. “Come on,” she was yelling as the guard shoved a stumbling man over the tailgate and into the bed of the truck. “We have to move, let's go, leave your research, it's fine!”

Tony cut through the crowd, flattening his palm against his chest. The pre-arranged signal was enough to relax her. “We have everyone?” he asked, stepping up close to her so he could keep his voice low.

She was shaking, but she didn't flinch. “Almost,” she said. “We've released a couple of transports already, but we're missing a couple from the lower floors.” 

“Harris and his boys have gone down to look for them.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “You didn't have problems with the sprinkler system, I take it.”

Her lips twitched in a tight smile. “All those years I've been told that smoking's bad for my health, but the lighters come in useful.” She shifted her weight, checking an ID as a man came stumbling through the crowd, waving to a couple of others. “And now the guards on our trucks are sympathetic to our cause.”

Tony grinned, knowing full well that the 'guards' were as much Hydra as he was. “They have any trouble acquiring the uniforms?”

“Only the first one. I almost felt bad about it. Then again, he's been flirting with Jessica for months, and it's hard to be suave in a helmet. It wasn't hard to distract him long enough to take a pipe to the back of his head.” She passed him the clipboard, and he pretended to check it, letting the handheld taser slip from beneath the pages into his waiting palm. “After that, we had some help. It was useful that no one takes us seriously.” She looked exhausted, but she managed to smile at Tony. “What's the order?”

“If we've got a filled truck, take it.” He glanced at the list of names. “You have your paperwork?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “But-”

“Stick to the plan.” He handed her the clipboard back. “Go on, go!” he yelled, adding a hint of a German accent, and the 'guard' grabbed her arm, pulling her into the truck. As soon as they were both in, the 'guard' pounding on the side of the truck with the hand that wasn't holding his rifle, the driver put the truck in gear and they were rolling towards the exit of the compound.

Tony waited, rifle over his shoulder, tucking the taser into the chest pocket of his jacket, until they were out of sight. In the chaos of the evacuation, with Hydra agents hefting boxes of equipment and cases onto trucks and running through the soaked corridors, no one noticed that a truck had left with too many civilians and too few guards.

As soon as they were gone, Tony adjusted his helmet and hustled back towards the main stairwell. Harris and his team hadn't reappeared, and that was probably a very bad sign.

*

The Avengers had taken the Hydra airstrip without much difficulty, with Thor taking out the communications equipment before the slightest alarm could be raised, and SHIELD quick response jets cruising in to down what limited aircraft were on site. Bruce, feeling the strain as much as the rest of them, had let the other guy out, and most of the personnel who hadn't surrendered immediately went down without firing a shot. He was standing guard on the prisoners now, arms crossed, glaring.

Steve had barely gotten a few blows in, his shield bouncing like a pinball into narrow spaces between buildings and clipping around corners as Hawkeye called targets. He'd gotten used to Clint's precision, the utter accuracy of his provided angles, distances and positions. He didn't need to see where he was throwing, if Clint could see it for him.

Natasha, clearly needing to blow off some steam, had done a sweep of the hangers and the small control tower, rounding up the few that remained and calling in SHIELD agents to handle them. The battlesuited agents swarmed the airstrip like ants, moving fast and working well under Coulson's able orders. They'd been scrambled in once the Avengers had confirmed the location of the base, Fury throwing his weight behind the recovery effort without question.

The good news was, they'd found the base. The bad news was, personnel and vehicles were streaming out of it at a high rate. 

“What the fuck is going on?” Clint snapped. Perched on the top of the control tower, he hadn't moved since the first sudden explosion of movement from the compound had caught his attention.

“General evacuation procedure,” Natasha said over the comm. She was still inside, trying to extract any info she could from the sparking computer systems. Death by Thor was pretty final, but she was good. “It has to be. Something went down in that base, who wants to bet it had something to do with Stark?”

“I think we can assume that's the case, yes,” Coulson said. “It's a good sign. It means he's still fighting.”

“Or he was,” Steve gritted out. He flicked his arm, letting the shield spin in his hand, a nervous tic that he couldn't quite shake himself of, he hated it, he hated it here, he hated the Hydra uniforms, so familiar and so foreign, he hated that they were still around. That they still looked like Nazis, now, when the world should've learned, should've known better.

He still remembered Fury telling him that the world had made mistakes in the time that Steve had been under. It wasn't the mistakes that the new world had made that bothered Steve; it was the fact that no one seemed to have learned a dang thing from the mistakes that were made in his time.

“We've got incoming,” Clint announced. “Thor, you got 'em?”

“Aye,” Thor agreed. He'd moved up high, barely a black speck on the clear blue of the sky, moving faster than most birds, but almost unnoticeable.

“What have we got?” Coulson asked, stalking across the airstrip. His tie fluttered in the hot wind, but he was as composed and collected as ever.

“Transport truck. Hydra in the front, both seats. Judging by how low it's sitting on the tires, it's fully loaded, but I've got no angle on the reverse. Could be anything. Coming in fast, they're in a rush.”

“ETA?”

“We got maybe five minutes.”

“Cap?” Coulson asked.

Steve checked the binoculars. “Hawkeye, take out one of the rear tires. See if you can slow them down without panicking anyone. Thor, as soon as they're stopped, see to it they don't start again. Widow, cover the high ground. I've got the rear.” He moved back, behind the cover of a low retaining wall, holding his ground without exposing himself. “Coulson, keep the agents back until we know what we're dealing with here, we have no idea what they're doing out here, or what they're carrying.”

“Gotcha, Cap,” Clint said, and the faint, vibrating whine of a bowstring being pulled sang over the comm unit into Steve's ear. “Call it, Coulson.”

Coulson held everyone until the truck rolled onto the rutted and patched tarmac of the airfield. “Take it.”

The arrow punctured the sidewall silently, the draw and force prefect to embed the arrow without blowing the tire. The truck shuddered, and as it deflated, it rocked and jerked, coming to an uneven stop exactly where they wanted it. Before anyone could move, Thor came down for a landing, his feet touching down right in front of the truck, one hand bracing on the hood. “Hold!” he called, his face drawn tight. “Stay your hands from your weapons, and no harm will come to you.” Above his head, Mjolnir still swung in a lazy, threatening circle.

Behind the vehicle, Steve stepped out from the building's cover, shield up and at the ready, and Natasha dropped down, silent and light as a falling leaf, onto the top of the truck, a gun held at the ready in each hand. 

The man in the driver's seat already had both hands up. “I have a message for Hawkeye from Tony Stark,” he called and everyone stopped.

“Oookay,” Clint said into his comm. “Thor, ask him what the message is.”

“Speak,” Thor said. “He is listening.”

The man cleared his throat, the sound audible even through the helmet. Then he began to sing, “I'm a little teapot, short and stout-” and Clint burst out laughing.

“Yeah, he's been talking to Stark all right.” Clint chuckled “We got drunk and decided we needed a secret code in case of, you know, body snatchers or Skrull impersonation or something. That's the song he chose. Mine, for future reference, was the Oscar Meyer Wiener song.”

Natasha snorted. “Of course it was.” She straightened up, and holstered one of her pistols. “Hand your weapons out the window, please,” she said, leaning down to take the rifle the man in the passenger seat held out to her.

Coulson stepped onto the tarmac, his weapon at the ready. “Everyone out of the truck,” he said, SHIELD agents coming from all directions. “Slowly. Hands where we can see them.”

Steve peered into the dim rear of the truck. A tiny woman in a lab coat was the first one to slip out. She was clutching a piece of paper in one upraised hand. “We have these,” she explained, holding it up. “Tony gave us these, said to give them to SHIELD. We are the science staff, we were being held in the compound.”

She offered it to Steve, who took it as the rest of the truck's passengers started to hop out, hands up. They were ragged and frightened looking, many of them clutching similar sheets of paper as they were guided by SHIELD agents into the building and relative safety. Steve stepped back, letting Coulson take his place at unloading the truck as he unfolded the sheet.

_“To whom it may concern,_

_The undersigned, Jodi Chang, is an American citizen held against her will in a Hydra facility. For her assistance in escaping and helping her fellows escape captivity, she has been promised a job with StarkIndustries in a position befitting her education and experience. StarkIndustries will waive right of first claim to this employee provided that SHIELD chooses to employ her at a comparable position and rate of pay._

_“Normal relocation stipend, benefits package and hiring bonus does apply to this hiring situation. The 'Holy fuck we escaped the evil lair' party will be financed solely by Tony Stark, not StarkIndustries, and will be scheduled after the debrief. There will be an open bar and a vegetarian menu option.”_

There were two signatures, one of them unmistakeably Tony's, and a thumbprint in what Steve hoped to God was not blood, but it was probably blood because Tony was damn thorough when he wanted to be. Wordlessly, he handed it over to Coulson, who scanned it. 

“He needs a pscyhe eval,” Phil said at last. “Jesus.”

Steve wasn't sure why, but he was smiling. “At least we know he was safe.” He took the page from another woman who was being boosted out of the back by a couple of SHIELD agents. “Where is Tony Stark?” 

She shook her head. “We were the first group out. I don't know, I'm sorry.”

“I do.” The driver had shed his helmet and jacket, and was being patted down by a junior agent. “He was upstairs, on the third floor. The interrogation rooms, he'd set it up that way. Harris, Zach, and Brian went to get him, but they hadn't come back by the time we left. That was the plan. That was what we were supposed to do, to get the trucks out as soon as they were loaded.”

Steve's vision dimmed a bit at 'interrogation room,' and he gritted his teeth. “Was he alive?”

“I don't-” He paused. “Yes. The alarms went off. That meant someone made it to the central control booth, and no one else was up there to do it. It had to be him. He had to be-” The man was covered in sweat, his face a paste gray color. He blinked at Steve. “He had a plan.”

“He usually does,” Steve said with a tight smile.

“Orders, Cap?” Coulson said, his voice quiet. 

Steve took a breath. “How many civilians?” he asked the driver, who was handing over his own 'Tony Stark says not to kill me' letter. 

“Around seventy-five to ninety. The intent was to get everyone out. I know at least two trucks were moving by the time we were outside the compound.” He swallowed. “There'd be about six trucks, if we could get everyone.”

Steve took a deep breath and resisted the urge to swear.

“We've got two more en route,” Clint said over the comm. “Six minutes, maybe less.”

Natasha crouched down on top of the truck cab, lowering her voice. “Cap, I can get in. You know I can. Let me go, Thor can drop me in deep, I can make sure he made it clear.” She waved a hand. “You need Hawkeye up high, and Coulson on the ground, but you and the big guy can handle things here. We go in there guns blazing, they'll put a bullet in him, you know they will. Let me make sure he's out, then we can send in the ground troops to mop up the rest.” She flicked her eyes to Coulson, who paused for only a second, then nodded.

“Estimates place the troop contingent at in this place at a low number, we've already taken care of more than fifty of them out here,” he pointed out. “By the time they get there, they're going to have security holes she could drive a tank through.

Yeah, he hated that idea. Hated that idea. Hated mostly that it was the best idea he had. He stared up at her. “Take no unnecessary chances,” he bit out, and she nodded, serene. He turned to Thor. “Drop her where she chooses, but stay close. If she needs help, take out a wall or two if you need to.”

Thor's mouth kicked up on one side, his arms folded across his chest, muscles bulging with unspoken menace. “I will stay close at hand, worry not.” He offered Natasha a hand. “Fair Widow?”

She took his hand and allowed herself to be scooped up into the crook of one of his massive arms. “Stay low, if you can,” she said. “We'll keep you posted, Cap.” With a flick of a two fingered salute, she was carried aloft and away. 

Coulson touched Steve lightly on the back. “She'll be fine.”

“I know.” And he did know. Natasha was the best, fast and smart and brilliant under fire, even better in the silent shadows. He knew she could do it.

And he refused to acknowledge the churning, unpleasant emotion that was twisting him in knots. Something that felt very much like impotent jealousy, because she was going to save Tony and he had to let her. He had to. It was Tony's best chance, and the civilians' best chance, and Steve's best chance, and he hated it.

Hated it all the more because he was such a fake.

“Sixty second warning,” Clint said, breaking Steve out of his thoughts. 

He glanced at Coulson. Coulson, who if he had any idea what sort of chaos was playing out inside Steve's mind, could be counted on to keep it to himself. Coulson, who did know. Who did understand. Who'd had to stand back so many times when Clint went off grid, who had to be dispassionate and calm and collected, because lives, because a life, THE life, was hanging in the balance.

His eyes were full of everything Steve felt, and couldn't say, and there was no judgment there. “Take the front, I'll cover the back,” Coulson said, his voice gentle. “If they don't know the code, you'll be in a better position to deal with them.”

Translation: put his dang shield through the dang windshield. Steve nodded, sharp and hard. It was little enough, but it was something.

All his life, he'd clung to whatever he could manage. By now, he would've thought he'd be better at it.

*

The doors were open all the way down. Tony, rifle over his shoulder and boots splashing through the puddles of water, moved briskly in the correct direction, dodging around the random one or two guards that were heading upstairs at a brisk pace.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

Every door he checked down the long corridor was empty, the labs vacant and deserted. There were papers scattered across the floor, shattered glass and stripped equipment stations everywhere, and with each door, each empty space, no sign of Harris or the others, the sensation of wrongness intensified.

The sensation of being wrong. Goddammit, he hated that feeling.

The final door in the hallway had a guard. Tony strode forward, not pausing, not so much as slowing down. Beneath his helmet's cover, he watched carefully. When the guard pressed a hand flat on his chest, Tony heaved a huge sigh of relief, and mirrored the gesture. 

“Harris is inside,” the guard said as Tony passed. He pushed the door open. “There's a... Problem.”

Tony pushed past him. “You. Go. I'll have Harris out of here in a minute.”

“But-”

“Go. That's an order.” And wasn't it fun? He was working with people who actually obeyed him. There was a stunning novelty to that. The kid didn't put in so much as another token protest, just took off down the hall. Tony dragged the door shut behind him, turned and felt his heart skip a beat.

“Oh,” he said aloud, as his brain scrambled to catch up. “So that's why we were working on a guidance system. Because they have fucking missiles.”

There was a guard leaning against the wall on an upper catwalk, one hand braced against his beastbone, and Tony found the nearest ladder, keeping an eye on the room as he did. As missile bays went, it wasn't particularly big, but when you had, well, MISSILES, you really only needed a limited amount of real estate. On the plus side, they were ground based munitions. On the bad side, they were ground based munitions, and Tony was standing in the ground they were based on.

“Are we standing in a missile silo?” he asked as he got close enough to the guard for him to hear it. 

“Yeah, it appears we are.” Harris crouched down behind a console, folding into himself, and yanking his helmet off as soon as he was out of sight of the floor. His pale hair was plastered to his skull, his skin pale and his hands trembling as he fought to get a grip on the helmet.

“Well, this isn't good,” he gritted out, yanking his helmet off as well. “Harris, I take it that this is what we were working on a guidance program for?”

“Yeah, it would seem so.” The young man was curled behind the console, and Tony watched him, watched the way he was doing his best to get a clear line of sight of the missile bay without being seen. “We didn't know, I swear we didn't. No one works down here except Hydra goons. Everyone in the labs thought it was, well, I don't know what we thought it was, but we certainly didn't think our labs were sitting on top of WMDs.”

“No one ever does.” Tony took a deep breath and immediately regretted it. Son-of-a-bitch, his ribs hurt. He gritted his teeth, ignoring the sweat that had broken across his brow under the helmet. He had to concentrate. Because this was bad. This was... This was very bad. He took another breath, keeping it shallow and light with a force of will. 

“What do you think they are?” Harris whispered.

“Biological or chemical,” Tony said, without having to even think about it. The designs were sleek, advanced, terrifyingly competent. “It looks like this is where the whole compound's tech budget was going.” He rolled to his feet. “I need you to keep a watch for me,” he said, bracing one hand on the console behind him. If you see anyone coming, or looking in my direction, pound on the grating.” He gestured at the loose weave of metal beneath their feet. 

“I can come,” Harris started, and Tony shook his head.

“Stay here. Keep watch. I need a different angle, Harris. From here you can see parts of the floor I can't.” He adjusted his helmet. “Do you understand?” The kid nodded, and Tony gave him a faint smile. “Good boy.” Without giving him a chance to freak out, Tony shouldered his rifle and set off across the catwalk. He didn't attempt to hide, didn't do anything to sneak, just strode along the periphery of the room, eyes taking in anything and everything he could.

He had miscalculated so badly that he almost didn't want to head back to where Harris was hiding.

Mentally spitting every curse he knew, he paused for a second, looking down over the consoles, the still busy floor, the scattered parts. The men still working, even though somewhere above them, the klaxon was still wailing, the movement of people, the movement of people, the movement of people. 

Yeah. He'd miscalculated. 

He headed back to the alcove where Harris was crouched, his helmeted head swinging from side to side, his shoulders tense beneath the heavy lines of his uniform. His rifle was braced on the metal mesh. Tony slid in next to him. “Well?” Harris asked, his voice pitched low.

Tony took a deep breathed, and relished the burn of pain that resulted. “We need to get these things shut down,” he said without further ado. “They're not packing them up. We're in full evac, and they're not packing them up. I am not liking that.”

“You think they're staying?”

“I think they're close to launching. In that I completely spaced out on the job I was supposed to be doing, I do that when villainy is involved, I'm just not a joiner for that kind of shit, how close was the guidance system to being done?”

Harris shook his head. “I don't-”

“I need you to give me you best educated guess. We're in some serious shit here, Harris, I'm not kidding, we are in an underground tomb with a bunch of missiles that may or may not be functional. I need you to give me a guess here.”

There was a beat of silence. “It was done,” he said at last. 

“But the contractor-”

“Was superfluous. I think-” He shifted. “I think they were testing the guy for something else. To see what he did with this so they could try him on something bigger.”

“So they could launch.”

“They could. Yeah.”

“We, uh, we can't let them do that.” 

His breath shuddered as it slipped out. “I was kinda afraid you were going to say that,” Harris said, and his voice was shaking.

“We can't let them do that,” Tony said. “Look at me, Harris. Look at me. We can't let them do that. The capability of these missiles- They could take out a city. Half a dozen cities. Deaths could be in the hundreds of thousands, millions depending on payload and destination. We can't let them do that.”

Tony leaned in. “No way we can get anywhere close to the missiles themselves. What we can do is sabotage the launch capability.” He gripped Harris' shoulder. “You're the only one here. I need you to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Okay, good, that's good.” Tony pulled Harris forward. “Look. Do you see the consoles down there?” Harris nodded. “There's going to be a series of overrides. They'll have plastic covers over red switches. I need you go down there and flip all of them into the off position.”

Harris was already shaking his head, his face pale and drawn. “Why? That won't do anything. They can just reengage them.”

“They can. If I don't go down to electrical room and disengage the safeties on the circuit breakers. Then do a little patch work. If all goes well, I should be able to fry the hell out of something important.”

“That won't stop them.”

“We don't have to stop them,” Tony said. “We just have to slow them down. We have to give time for the Avengers to show up and do what they do best. And if they did not bring my suitcase suit, I will never speak to any of them again, because this whole running around in a pair of coveralls and getting my face punched in is just losing it's charm.” Harris was staring at him, pale and wide-eyed, his pupils huge in the low light. “Kid, I need you to stick with me here.”

“I don't know if I can do this,” Harris said, and his voice was thin, drawn out like a thread unraveling strand by strand.

Tony crouched down, putting himself face to face with the younger man. “I need you to hold on for me,” he said, keeping his voice calm, controlled. Inside, he felt like he was shaking apart, but he could do this. He could do this for just a little while longer. “I need you to do this, because I can't do it alone. I need you to hold on, just long enough to get through this, and then you're up and gone, but I need you. I need you to hold on.”

Harris looked at him, and a faint, semi-hysterical twitch of laughter made it past his lips. “To what?” he whispered back. “Hold on to what?”

“Whatever you've got,” Tony told him. “The end of your rope, if that's all that's left. If that's all that's there, if that's all you have, then hold onto that, with both hands and your teeth if necessary.” He grabbed Harris' shoulder, gave him a faint shake. “Can you do that for me?”

Harris took a deep breath, and it shuddered through him, his shoulder shaking under Tony's fingers. “Yeah,” he said. He wiped a hand over his face. “Okay. Yeah.” He scrambled to his feet, Tony half shoving him, half dragging him along. “Yeah.” He swallowed, his mouth twitching. “Go to the console. Hit the overrides. Disable them all.”

“Right. Then get out. Straight up and out to the main loading dock. Take any transport you can, just go.”

“What about you?”

“I'll be right behind you.” Tony scanned his face, but the kid had stopped shaking, his hands stable now. “I will be right behind you, so you stick to the goddamn plan.”

“This wasn't in the plan.”

“It is now. The plan is fluid. Adaptable,” Tony said, managing a shadow of his usual snarky grin.

“What if I want to change the plan?”

“You are like twelve. You follow the plan, or I'll wring your neck,” Tony said, flatly.

Harris choked on a laugh. “Well, good to see where I fit into the scheme of things.”

“Total obedience,” Tony explained. 

“I don't want this job any more.”

“Too late. Welcome to SHIELD. The first debrief is always a bitch, most people cry, I resisted the urge to throw up in the trash can, really, don't worry about it.” Tony looked over the edge of the catwalk, where there was a scramble of new arrivals. “Fuck. Don't know what's happening, but people are not looking at us. That's something we're going to take advantage of. Go.”

Harris straightened up, his shoulders going back and his chin coming up, damp blonde hair trailing over his forehead. “I can do this,” he said, and Tony choked on a laugh. “What?”

“I just got it. Wow. I am dumb. I finally figured out why you look so familiar. You look just like a friend of mine when he was younger. And smaller.” He grinned. “You can do this.”

Harris gave him a strange look, but smiled back. “Your friend? Did he become a hero when he got bigger?”

“He was always a hero. He just needed a chance. Go.” He shoved his helmet on and waited for Harris to put his on as well, and then Tony was up and moving as fast as he dared, heading down the catwalk and towards the ladder. 

The feeling of exposure as he crossed the main floor was not one he liked. Especially since he wasn't moving nearly as quickly as he'd like, his ribs, when he spared a thought for them, felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to them, and he couldn't take a full sized breath without risking a sharp, stabbing pain. It took far too much concentration to walk through the handful Hydra agents that were still on site.

It occurred to him, in some corner of his mind, like the HUD of the armor tucking the data just in his line of sight, that he was reaching the end of his rope.

The passage of time was no longer in hours or days, it was in heartbeats and footfalls and pain, spiking and ebbing like a foreign object thrust in amongst his internal organs. He tried not to think about it, but his brain compartmentalized so easily, was so quick to assign numbers and statistics and probabilities. The slow march of declining odds flickered with red numbers in his brain with each icy stab that made him flinch from his own breath.

Intellectually, he knew that the combination of dopamine and adrenaline, the cocktail his brain mixed with a practiced hand to steel his battered body was fading with utter finality. His biological processes, prepped for self-preservation the way that the thinking part of Tony never had been, had given him enough of a boost to get out, get free, to ignore the pain and fear and the tumbling force of his own numerical certainty. He'd been given the chance, the chemicals to make his body obey when it was no longer capable of doing so.

And he was only heading deeper.

Somewhere in the back of his head, he could hear Steve's voice, saying, “Stark, you know that's a one way trip.” Because Steve had always made him feel guilty about not coming back in a way no one else could.. 

It still wasn't enough to stop him. He didn't want to think about what that meant. What it said about him. 

By the time he made it down the final set of metal stairs, following the thick bunches of electrical cords as they ran across the floor and down, down, down, he was breathing hard, sharp and thin and fast, one arm cradling his ribs, and as soon as he was out of sight, he ripped the helmet off, needing the easy access to air more than he needed the protection it offered. Bracing a hand against the walls, he fought off a wave of dizziness that blanked his vision at the edges and raised a serious layer of sweat on every inch of his skin.

It took him a couple of seconds to get himself back under control, and when he did, his hands shook as he pulled himself back upright.

Focus. He needed to focus. He needed to buy time, to buy the seconds that were wicking away with every breath, every heartbeat, because he knew SHIELD was out there, outside the compound, they were coming, there was no way that they'd miss his cues, there was no way...

Possibilities and probabilities and the inescapable mathematical certainty that he might not make it until they got here. 

He pushed the door open and slid through, into the darkness of the control room. The door swung behind him, and he staggered forward, heading for the circuit breakers.

The click of a pistol cocking froze the blood in his veins.

“Hey, Anthony!”

He couldn't help it. He started to laugh. “What,” he asked, his head falling back, “do I have an exceptionally high point value in some sort of super villain scavenger hunt or something? I knew I was popular, but this is just ridiculous.”

“I have to agree. Drop the rifle, huh, man?”

Tony took a deep breath, letting the pain clear the fuzzy spaces of his mind with the force of a sledgehammer. The odds flickered by in a rush of numbers, probabilities and possibilities and he was so tired that it took an eternity for his fingers to loosen, letting the rifle slide to the ground. Without being prompted, he disposed of both pistols as well, his movements slow and careful.

“The thing is, I should've paid more attention,” he said, mostly to himself. “Should've asked myself who they were bringing in. After all, most people capable of doing a long range guidance system, they do that for themselves, and sell their system wholesale. Have their own company, or at least their own employer. Who in the world of weapons munitions has the capability of making one, but needs to subcontract? Who would work for Hydra, and not already be fully part of Hydra?” He paused. “Who recently broke out of jail under mysterious circumstances and is the fucking bad penny that has turned up my entire adult life?”

He paused. “And who is interested in the fuorth and final reason for kidnapping me?”

“What's that?”

“The fourth reason?” Slowly, carefully, Tony turned around. Met the crazy, manic eyes behind heavy, surprisingly unfashionable glasses. “The fourth reason for kidnapping me is revenge.”

“That's about the size of it,” Justin Hammer said, his grin stretching like a macabre slash across his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't shoot me. Thank you.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't do things that aren't cliffhangers. This one's a doozy. If you are annoyed/frustrated/homicidal about such things, please wait for the end. 
> 
> It's also a good time to remind you whose name is under the title here. Good lord, people, do not forget that! 8)

*

Tony stared at Justin Hammer, too tired to be anything other than utterly dispassionate about the situation. He couldn't work up the energy to care, and really, nothing would surprise him any more. The only thing that could make this worse would be if Bill O'Reilly, wearing the Iron Monger suit, were to crash through the wall and tell Tony that his father was disappointed in him. Really. Other than that, this was the definition of his worst nightmare.

“Taking contract work now, Justin?” Tony asked. “I mean, I assume you're the one they were bringing in to deal with the guidance systems.”

“And here I thought we'd never be bidding on the same contracts again, Anthony,” Hammer said, and it almost sounded like the old Justin Hammer. The harmless, ineffectual pest that grated on Tony's nerves and raised every one of his hackles simultaneously. “They told me you were here. I mean, it's been so long since we've worked together, I couldn't wait to get going on this, ya know?”

“We never worked together,” Tony said, shifting, just enough, and the gun in Hammer's hand jerked. Nerves and stress and something else, something closer to madness, was there in Hammer's face. It wasn't a comforting mixture, but he'd never been comfortable around Justin.

He'd always told Pepper that he hated Hammer because the guy was a waste of a perfectly good company. Because a real competitor was preferable to a fake showman that just blinded everyone with empty razzle-dazzle and buried the flaws of his overpriced products under a slick sales pitch. Tony would've preferred an actual competitor, someone to push him, to fight with, to measure his own abilities against. He told Pepper that he wanted and equal, and Hammer wasn't it, and all of disdain came from that.

Of course, the reality of the situation was a little more complicated. It always was with Tony.

Everything he hated about Justin Hammer, he hated more about himself. Spending too much time with Hammer was like watching a strange, distorted mirror slowly reform all of his character flaws into a human being that was Tony Stark, the way the rest of the world had seen him, the way his father had seen him, the way Obie had seen him, and it terrified Tony. He could see it, he could see how easily he could become every single thing that every dark whisper that echoed in his ears said he was. And Tony was afraid of that. 

Of ending up as a fast-talking figurehead playing an elaborate shell game with his own stock. It wouldn't take much, Tony knew that. He was always one brilliant solution away from being nothing but a womanizing drunk with a big mouth.

And a fucking creepy one at that.

He stared at the barrel of Hammer's gun, at the empty hole that looked like nothing so much as a mirror, and there was something poetic about this, about Hammer being the one to end his life. About his own sins and flaws made human and pulling the trigger.

That was some Russian lit level shit right there.

Of course, the poetic irony was outweighed by the fact that he was about to be shot by Justin Fucking Hammer in the fucking basement of a fucking Hydra facility in fucking Thailand.

Fuck that.

“You know what?” Tony asked, his tone conversational “I can't even work up the energy to care right now. Do you understand, do you have any clue about how many times I've almost died? Let alone the number of times I actually have?

“My life reads like a living nightmare, Hammer, a slow slide into crippling phobia, madness, and collapse. The fact that I'm still standing, still breathing right now, is less a miracle and more a statistical abnormality. I am way off the fucking map here, off in the land of monsters and mathematicians.”

“See, that's the thing, Tony,” Hammer said, and his hand was shaking the way his voice was shaking, hard and sharp and uneven. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated, his expression bordering on the manic, a muscle jumping in his cheek. “You were never as special as you thought you were.” 

Tony chuckled, and watched as the sound made Hammer's arm jerk. “Yeah, I kind of am.” He straightened up. “And you think that killing me will, what? Make you more special? Or have you convinced yourself that I'm the source of all of your many failings?” The steady drip of water in the background measured out the time, torture despite the fact that Tony no longer caught the droplets on his skin. “You think that killing me will put everything right?”

“I think that killing you will KILL you!” Hammer roared, and it echoed around the concrete like a gunshot.

Tony grinned. “Really,” he said. “It won't. Let's go over all the ways I've almost died.

“Thrown from a sixty story window, that one was bad, I'm proud of myself for not dying somewhere on the way down, that was an actual accomplishment.” He paused, trying to remind himself that he could remember without reliving. “Falling that far, that fast, it's impossible to breathe. It rips the air out of your mouth, out of your nose, and you can't see, can't hear, can't move, it's all you can do to force your heart to keep beating long enough to keep your blood flowing.

“Drowned, repeatedly, temporary situation, but still, that was bad. Torture comes in all kind of packages, you know that, mostly it's the stuff your own head does to you. That's why water boarding's so bad, because you know they want you alive, but your body doesn't. Every time you go under, every time you breathe water instead of air, you die again, and again and again, until your brain can't stand waking up any more. Until you just want to die, so you do. It's temporary, like I said, but limbo's temporary, too, isn't it?”

He paused, lips quirking up. “I've been shot, I've been electrocuted, I've been crushed and stabbed and hit by a fucking car. I've dropped in free-fall from 30,000 feet with the armor dragging me down every inch of the way like an anchor around my throat. I've nearly broken my own neck in the workshop, burned and poisoned and exposed myself to almost fatal doses of radiation.

“I've crashed cars and been starved down to the bone, I've drunk myself into alcohol poisoning, and felt my skin dry like parchment in the desert sun, thirst like a living thing in my throat. I've gone toe to toe with demi-gods and madmen and monsters, I've thrown myself into a turbine the size of a small apartment building and smashed through walls using my head as a blunt instrument.

“I have caught a fucking nuclear warhead in my hands and flown it through a portal to another world,” he snarled, suddenly filled with a savage sort of rage. “You really think you and your PEASHOOTER holds any fear for me right now?”

Hammer was visibly sweating now, his skin pallid and drawn, his hands shaking like he was malarial, eyes wide and dark and fevered. “Shut up,” he said, his voice trembling. “Shut up! You-” He shoved a hand through his wet hair, and it didn't help; he still looked like a drowned rat. “You shut up,” he gritted out, loud and harsh.

“Don't you want to be more original?” Tony asked, his voice mocking. He leaned his back against the wall. “The worst. You know what's the worst way to die?” His lips quirked up, his arms folding across his chest, huddling back into himself, exhaustion sweeping over his face. “It's asphyxiation.” He sucked in a long, tense breath. “Drowning's bad, I never want to go through that again, but at least with drowning, you know you're dying. You suck in a breath, and the water's in your mouth, in your throat, and you know you're dying. Your brain knows it, your body knows it, you fight but you're dying, and you have to accept that, even as you struggle the whole fucking way down.

“Asphyxiation? When there's air, and it's not oxygenated? When my suit can't filter the carbon dioxide out any longer. That... Is the worst. Asphyxiation is death by a biological mistake.” Tony grinned, the sharp, hard flash of teeth lacking all humor. “You suck in a breath, and it feels right, the pressure of air on your throat, in your lungs, it feels right. Normal. But it's not what you need, and your body knows it, even if your brain doesn't.”

His back bowed, his shoulders hunched, he stared vacantly over Hammer's shoulder, exhaustion bleeding into his posture, his hands rubbing up and down over his chest. He shifted his weight and pulled his arms in tighter, almost hugging himself. “So you suck in one breath, and another, faster and faster struggling to breathe through the breaths, trying to find a way to breathe when there's no air to be had and your own lungs are failing you.” His eyes haunted, he shuddered. “You breathe, and you die, but your conscious brain cannot understand because you are doing exactly what you're supposed to, you're doing everything right and you die by medical misadventure.”

His head fell forward, his shaking, tired voice falling to a faint, thready whisper. “And the worst part, the absolute worst part,” he managed, his words breaking on an uneven chuckle. 

There was the faint sound of Hammer's feet on the cracked, damaged floor, as he leaned in, as he followed that fine, drawn out thread of Tony's voice. Unconsciously, he shifted closer, and Tony's arms snapped out, his left catching the inside of Justin's wrist and knocking the gun up and away. His right jammed the taser he'd pulled from the jacket pocket into Hammer's neck.

The man went down like a wax dummy, limbs stiff, body slamming into the floor with a thunk.

“Did I seriously just beat you by monologuing?” Tony asked, and it was a rhetorical question, because he was the only one there, and he had totally just beaten Hammer by monologuing. “That is pathetic. Do you understand me?” he snapped at the limp pile of stupid at his feet. “I cannot believe that I am stuck with you as a nemesis, that is just, fuck, I cannot deal with this right now, you absolute waste of a human brain, and if it were up to me, we wouldn't even bother arresting you, I'd just get a fucking restraining order, because you are the ex-boyfriend from HELL, you are the idiot who isn't a threat, isn't a real issue, you are just the guy who will not. Fucking. Go. Away.”

He kicked the gun away from Hammer's limp hand, and flipped him over onto his stomach, and everything hurt, goddamn, everything hurt, breathing hurt and moving hurt and his brain was running out of adrenaline to jam into his veins like some sort of slightly legal cocktail. Tony yanked Hammer's hands behind his back, and fumbled in his pockets for the duct tape.

“Everything about you makes me crazy. The fact that I might, conceivably, through some stretch of the imagination, come to die here, with you, is just infuriating to me. It is more than I am capable of thinking about without screaming, because let me tell you, Justin, old buddy, if I'm going to die, my last act will be to put a fucking bullet in your fucking head.”

No jury that had ever met Hammer would convict him. If he could get a jury together of people who'd had to work with the guy, he'd probably get a medal.

It took him far too long to bind Hammer's hands behind his back with the tape, and his feet at the ankles. He took an inordinate amount of pleasure at slapping tape over Hammer's mouth. If there was any justice, it would hurt like hell when it got ripped off. He would nominate Natasha to rip it off. Natasha knew how to make these things painful.

Fumbling through the idiot's pockets, looking for weapons, he came up with something so much better. A phone. He made a face at it, because not a StarkPhone, which would've been delightful on a couple of levels, and since it wasn't, he was betting that reception was going to be shit in the bottom of a concrete pit under a jungle in Thailand.

He activated it with a flick of his thumb and found that A. it was locked, B. it had no reception, and C. it was almost dead.

Tony resisted the urge to slam his head off of the nearest flat surface. Then he resisted the urge to slam Hammer's head off the nearest flat surface. That one was a lot harder to push down. “You could not be more of a loser if you tried,” he told the unconscious man instead. “And just for that, I am taking your wallet, too. Not because I need anything in it, just because I want you to suffer.” He jammed it in his pocket, because he could do something about the charge, and maybe something about the reception, and he'd get past the lock, damned if he wouldn't, but he had work to do first.

And he was behind schedule.

Plus, the sudden disappearance of their contractor would sink in with someone. Probably soon. Fantastic. Hammer: Making his life infinitely worse since forever.

He closed his eyes, just for a second, controlling his breathing, controlling the pain. Forcing himself to think. “We need a plan, Stark,” he muttered, trying to hear Steve's voice in the words. “C'mon. One more. Pull this off one more time.”

Prioritize. Prevent interruption. Damage anything and everything he could get his hands on. Barricade himself as much as possible. Make sure Hammer's gun had fucking bullets in it. Hunker down. Wait for Cap and the rest of the team to come rescue his ass.

Okay, so 'wait helplessly to be rescued' was pretty pathetic, but he could write it off as a team building exercise. Make the rest of the guys feel like they'd accomplished something. Because he was having trouble thinking now. Having trouble doing anything much, but it was fine, he could do this.

He just barely caught himself before he pitched face first into the ground. His fingers caught on something, his weight shifting forward hard, and the wires in his hand came loose with a brief, sharp flash. It was enough to snap his brain back to where it should be, refocus his attention, and he dragged himself up.

“I swear to God, I am putting in for the longest fucking vacation Fury will give me when this is all over,” 

He jammed the door, busting the lock to the best of his ability and wrapping a wire around the handle and a nearby rack, a figure eight that would hold, at least for a while. It was a temporary solution, but for now, it would work.

Tony turned his attention to the electrical equipment, looking it over with a practiced eye that was only barely slowed down. He started attacking the linakages, his movements systematic and precise as he could make them. If they got in, if they tried to undo his work, fine and dandy, but he was going to make them work for it. He moved down the relays, ripping out wires and damaging the plugs. Anything he could break, anything he could twist, or shred or splinter without electrocuting himself, he did, first with his hands, the butt of the gun, a random wrench that he unearthed from the bottom of one of the circuit breaker boxes.

Relays and wires and plugs, and he was a whirling dervish of destruction. Because he'd always been good at fixing things, but part of being a genius engineer was finding the weakest spot in a weak system and exploiting the hell out of it. Desperation clawed at him, and he fumbled his way along, focusing on his task because he wasn't capable of anything else.

He threw a circuit breaker and grabbed the thick bundle of wires that were drawn off of it. Setting his foot against the wall, he pushed back with all his strength. His muscles jerking, his hands slipping with water, sweat or blood, he pulled, and the wires ripped free.

The building was rocked by an explosion that literally knocked his legs out from under him.

Tony crashed to the ground, hitting hard and hitting wrong, his elbow and his shoulder and his head slamming against the concrete, and the building was shaking, and the sound of the explosion was now covered by the echo of stone and metal and glass shattering, crashing down like a wave. Instinct took over, instinct and fear and Tony was moving backwards, rolling towards a console that stood some chance of cover, and the ceiling above him cracked, rock raining down.

And he crashed against the wall and waited for the building to collapse down on him.

A second passed. Another. Dust and smoke and grit swirled and settled, floating like living things in the air, settling down to the floor. The lights flickered and died, and emergency lights took their place, a pale flare against the floor. Tony risked a breath, the edge of his jacket pulled up over his mouth, over his nose, providing a crude filter. The air tasted like metal, or maybe there was blood in his throat. He watched, listened, his ears ringing. Waiting for the foundation to let go, waiting for a second explosion to complete what the first had begun.

But there was nothing but silence.

“Okay, I'm going to get blamed for that,” Tony muttered, blinking hard to keep his eyes clear. “Hammer, why do I sense your fine hand in this fuck-up?” He glanced at the door. Wondered if anyone was alive out there. Wondered if the roof had fallen in. Wondered if there was a route out.

He shifted up, and the agony knocked him back down.

Tony fumbled at his side, and his ribs were on fire, his fingers wet with something warm and there was a lot of it. His eyes slid shut, and he wondered if he'd blacked out, because he was bleeding, and there was a lot more there than there should've been, if he'd just cut himself a few minutes ago.

He glanced at the door. And knew he wasn't going to make it that far.

He pulled Hammer's phone from his pocket, and in the lowered light, went to work.

*

“Natasha!”

She jerked up, the stern voice in her ear enough to shake away the cobwebs. She sucked in a breath, and it tasted like dust and blood and the scorched, acrid smoke of burning ozone. She blinked hard, and her eyes stung. Sweat or blood or something wet running into her eyes, and she brushed her hair back, trying to get her throat to work.

“Romanov, report!” Coulson's voice, as clipped and calm as ever, but she'd worked with him enough, he'd been her handler for long enough that she could hear the thin vibration to the words. The way his vowels got a little wider, a little longer, the accent that he'd long since scrubbed from his words reappearing under stress. “Do you copy? What is your status?”

Natasha coughed, gagged, and spat. “Romanov here,” she said, bracing one hand on the wall. She ignored the way that it wanted to tremble, and levered herself up. Her legs held her weight, with only a faint ache to one ankle. A quick glance around confirmed what had happened. She'd fallen when the explosion had gone off, the floor going out from under her and sending her tumbling down to the floor underneath her, but she'd landed well and nothing had landed on top of her. Any explosion that she could walk away from was one she liked. “I copy you, sir.”

“What just happened, Agent?”

“I don't know. I'd just gotten inside, and I hadn't encountered anyone.” She glanced around, but the air was still thick with dust and smoke. She pushed herself back into a corner so she could get her bearings without being spotted in case there was anyone out doing recovery. “Bomb, maybe? Or self-destruct sequence. The... The compound just went pancake with no warning, which means Stark was probably involved.”

“Status?”

“I'm fine.” Natasha took a breath and checked her weapons. Making sure everything was in one piece, she started picking her way up the hall, sliding up and over chunks of masonry and stone. There was an all-encompassing silence, the weight of which pressed down on her, settling like the dust, as she strained for any sound. If anyone was still alive, they weren't talking. They weren't even groaning.

“Status.” The single, clipped word brooked no prevarication, no attempts at putting him off. 'Explosion' and 'agent' equaled injury in Coulson's world, his only question was how badly she was injured.

“Slight twisted ankle, and I may have hit my head. I fell when the floor collapsed. Nothing else.” She made her way down the hall, slipping from one patch of sunlight to the next. Above her, one of the lights that clung to the broken ceiling by a single exposed wire sparked and spat, the light illuminating the broken walls and floor like an explosion of fireworks, bright and dark by turns.

“We're en route,” Coulson said. “Thor is assisting a group on the truck dock. They are trapped, but alive.”

“I haven't come across anyone. Living or dead,” Natasha said. She peered around the corner, but the corridor was deserted, the ruins still and dark as if the building had fallen a hundred years ago, as opposed to moments before. “Not an earthquake?”

“Effect is localized. We're certain that it was only the compound that was affected at this point.”

There was a chunk of the upper story that had tipped down to this one, leaving a gaping hole and a path she could follow back up. She took it without more than a second's thought, her feet light on the unstable surface. The hallway was intact, for the most part, and she headed up, gun at the ready in front of her. There were half a dozen rooms, and they were all empty.

When she found one with occupants, they were bodies, not survivors. She crouched down, not needing to do much more than glance to know they were dead. “I've got a couple of dead,” she said, pausing to rest her weight on her heels. “Male, Hydra. Bound with duct tape and handcuffed. Looks like a wall came down on them.” She straightened up.

“Where are you?”

“Third floor, east side,” she said, rolling back to her feet.

“We have a recovery team moving in. Stark was last reported moving down to the lower levels via the main staircase.”

She'd seen that. Heading back to the hallway, she paused by the broken and crooked door to make a mark that would let the SHIELD crews know that there were dead inside. She moved back down the hall, pausing at each door and window, checking corners and every alcove she passed.

“We're on site, Widow,” Steve said. “Location?”

“Heading back towards the central stairs.”

“We're at the first floor access, but there's no way we're making it in here. The whole hallway's gone, it'll take us hours to get through the debris.”

She found the stairwell. The door was twisted on its hinges, hanging open. She nudged it open with one foot, glancing down. It was a pit of darkness, lit only sporadically by barely functioning emergency lights. “I've got access to the central staircase from here,” Natasha said. “Orders?”

There was a pause. “If there's a safe route, take it,” Steve said at last. “Hawkeye's coming up on the outside, see if he can't give you some back up. Widow?”

“I copy, Cap.” She pulled out a repelling line and secured it to an exposed rebar column. If her feet went out from under her, she wanted at least a chance of pulling herself back up. “ETA on Hawkeye?”

“Five minutes,” Clint said. “Ten on the outside, and that's if I meet active resistance.”

“Copy that.” She slipped into the stairwell. “I've left a line.”

“Understood.”

Natasha turned her attention towards picking her way down the narrow stairs, her feet finding a path on shattered stairwell. She was halfway down when she heard something down at the bottom. The last flight of stairs was gone, a crumbled mass of metal down on the ground, and she paused, adjusting to the darkness. Moving silently, she centered herself, and took aim with her pistol before she triggered her light. “Don't move.”

The slim form was in a Hydra uniform, but it took about ten seconds to determine he wasn't Hydra. He was too small, too young and despite the surprise and the situation, he just looked up, squinting into the light, his face flecked with dirt and blood.

The kid looked like he'd been through hell. Dried blood rimmed his nostrils and marred the blonde hair on one side of his head. He was hunched forward, his right arm inside of the uniform jacket, binding it against his chest. Broken or dislocated, judging by the way he held himself, by the dilation of his pupils and the clear indications of shock, his skin pallid and his breathing low and rough.

He stared up at her, squinting into the light she pinned him with. “Are you Coulson?” he asked after a second.

Natasha's head tipped to the side, a flicker of movement. “No,” she said at last, her eyes narrowing.

He turned away, his left hand coming up to scrape against the rubble. It took him a second, but he got a grip and started to work a piece free, one booted foot braced against the wall. “Then fuck off.”

There was a faint chuckle from above her. “Kid, you've got balls like an elephant,” Clint said, dropping down with a light touch that belayed his size. “She's killed for much, much less than that.”

“I think I'm already dead,” the boy slurred, and despite his words, he wrenched back with more strength than Natasha could've dreamed he possessed. The rubble shifted, and Natasha held her breath, waiting for the whole space to collapse. Instead, the boy pried the rock free, and started moving forward into the spot he'd cleared. “The son-of-a-bitch said he'd be right behind me.”

Clint and Natasha exchanged a glance. He tipped his chin towards the ground, and she nodded. Clint hopped down, landing behind the young man, his boots barely scuffing on the ground. “I think you're hurt,” he said. “What happened to your arm?”

“It wasn't... It wasn't working right. I couldn't make it move.” The boy was running his good hand over the rubble, testing for movement, pressure. “Hurts less if I don't move it.” He paused, his foggy gaze finding Clint. “Are you Coulson?”

“No.” Moving slowly, carefully, Clint got closer, his hands held out to the side. Above them, Natasha kept her pistol aimed at the kid. Judging by the way he was moving, the way he could barely hold himself upright; she wasn't going to need it, but still. Watching Clint's back was ingrained by now, as natural and necessary as breathing.

“You said that he said he'd be right behind you?” Clint continued. “Who's he?”

“Stark. Tony Stark. He was...” The kid took too deep of a breath, and started to cough. Clint caught his shoulders as he staggered, and he found himself with an armload of gangly limbs. “He said he was right behind me. He promised. He promised, he said he'd be right behind me.” There were tears now, thick and heavy, in his voice, and he leaned into Clint as Clint tried to avoid putting pressure on his hidden arm. “I waited at the top of the stairs because he said he'd be coming. He said-”

“Yeah, he does that sometimes. It's okay.” His hands moving fast and careful, Clint checked the boy's pulse at his throat. He glanced up at Natasha, shaking his head, and she triggered her comm.

“We need an evac down here,” she said, her words pitched quiet to avoid panicking the kid. “Civilian, possible broken arm, head injury, shock. He's indicating he was with Stark right before the explosion.”

“I've got a medical team on the way.”

“He's looking to talk to you, Coulson.”

There was silence, then Coulson snorted. “Always making this my problem, aren't you, Stark? We have a description, Widow?”

“Five feet, eight inches, around a hundred pounds, Caucasian, blonde hair, blue eyes.”

“Sounds like our missing civilian, indeed. Can you hand your comm over?”

“Hawkeye's with him.” She glanced down, and he nodded. 

“I have Coulson on the comm,” he said, freeing one arm enough to pry the tiny device out of his ear. He smoothed the boy's hair away from his ear, his finger checking the skin for any blood or discharge before he slipped the earpiece in. “Just talk, and my mic will pick up what you say.”

“Harrison MacIntyre?” Coulson's smooth, calm voice came over the line. “Your friends are concerned about you. Are you all right?”

The boy swallowed. “You're Coulson?”

“Agent Coulson of SHIELD, yes.”

“He said you were coming.” A deep breath. “Missile bay. Beneath us. Six operational weapons. Payload biological or... Chemical.” A cough. “Sixteen people down there, other than Stark. Nine heavily armed. All of them Hydra, true believers, the science staff never, never got that far in.” His head slumped forward, and snapped back, the words slurring at the edges. “He had me kill the overrides. He was heading for the electrical room down underneath, underneath the-” His words trailed away, and Clint was lowering him down to sit on a flat chunk of the wall. His head lolled back on a limp neck, and Clint crouched over him, checking breathing, pulse. 

“Harris, I need you to keep talking to me,” Coulson said. “We have a medical team on their way.”

The kid's chest rose and fell, and his eyes were closed. “Layout. You need to know.” He started talking, and Natasha's eyebrows scraped her hairline as he rattled off dimensions, equipment, positions, specifications. By the time the SHIELD medical unit was working their way down behind her, his voice had faded to a faint, rough cough, but he was still going.

Clint cut him off. “Okay, time to go up. You did good.”

That seemed to rouse him. “Stark. Equipment, electrical room. Follow the cords, they bundled the electric wires, thick black ropes of them, exposed. Floor. Follow them. You'll-” He blinked as a light was shone in his eyes, his nose wrinkling. “He would've told me if he planned on blowing something up. Something went wrong. No one went in. No one came out. I could see from where I was waiting. There was... No one. But he wouldn't have blown it up.”

“Yeah, he really would,” Clint said, and his lips were twitching. “Good job, kid. Coulson, got a live one for you.”

“No!” The kid nearly clocked one of the medics as he flailed into a sitting position. “Stark said I was gonna be a SHIELD, I don' wanna be a SHIELD, it sounds painful an' I don' look good in black.”

“Most of SHIELD wears a nice navy blue,” Coulson said, and Natasha chuckled. “Are you certain about the information you just provided?”

“He's got a head injury,” Natasha said, in an undertone.

“Listen, you may run around with people with guns trying to shoot your ass all the time, but I don't,” Harris slurred. “I notice things. When not noticing them means I'm going to get SHOT.”

“You make a compelling case.”

“Have you ever been shot?” Harris asked Clint.

“We need a bottle of tequila, a stack of medical files, and a flowchart to even begin answering that question,” Clint said, helping the medics 

Harris blinked at him. Natasha, taking pity on the kid, translated. “He's been shot. A lot. It's a personality flaw on his part. He collects bullets and brings them home. In his gut.”

“It only matters that I home,” Clint said, crouching down. “Harris. You're the only one who's seen this place. We need you. The medics want to give you something for the pain, but that's going to put you under. We can do this, but if something goes wrong in there-”

“Clint-” Coulson said through the earpiece, and Clint couldn't hear it because his earpiece was in Harris' ear, wasn't that convenient? So Natasha echoed, “Clint.”

He kept going. “I'm leaving it up to you. Can you stick with us a little while longer?”

Harris blinked at him. “Is sobbin' like a baby acceptable behavior?”

“For a junior agent? It's pretty much expected.”

“Okay, then.” Harris roused. “No' a junior agent. No' an agent.”

“Fine, but I assume being Iron Man's sidekick involves way more sobbing. I'd take the junior agent post if I were you.”

“Clint, this isn't your call,” Coulson said, and Natasha repeated it.

“No, but it's his. Let's go, we're wasting time.” He glanced at the medics, who looked like they wanted to argue, but had long since learned that arguing with Barton about medical care was futile. “I'm going to need my comm unit back,” he said to Harris, who nodded and fished it out of his ear. “Okay. How far are we?”

Harris glanced at the pile of rubble he'd been moving. “This is the main door. Down the corridor, 'bout 150 meters. Labs about every fifty meters on either side. No one in any of 'em when I was leavin'. Last door, straight ahead, leads to the missile bay, but there's gotta be access from above, if they hope t' launch. I never saw it, but-” He sucked in a long breath. “Find Wayne. Wayne would know. He was in the genetics lab. He's been here longest. He was here when they were buildin' the place.”

“Understood.” Coulson's voice was echoed by Clint a half beat later. 

“We're going to put you on a back board to get you out of here,” one of the medics was saying to Harris, who was giving him a brutally unimpressed look.

“You expect me to be tied to a plank an' trust that you won't lose your grip?” he said, staggering to his feet. “No. Way.”

Clint chuckled. “I'd get an employment contract ready for this one,” he said, and before either of the medics could start freaking out, he just crouched down, tucked one shoulder behind Harris' knees, and straightened up, ignoring it when the kid squeaked and grabbed his hair in a death grip with his good hand. “Gotta reach up, Harris. Nat, give him a hand.” Linking his hands together, he got them under Harris' foot and boosted him up as Natasha pulled from above. 

They'd moved much bigger, much heavier, and much dumber. 

The medics, knowing they were outclassed, took over as soon as Harris was on the stairs next to Natasha, pale and panting with exertion. One of them glanced back at Clint with a muttered curse, and Clint gave him a little wave. “Civilian's on his way up,” he said, as they started to move the kid, easier now that the stairs were there to support them. “Coulson, we got orders?”

“Come up with him,” Coulson said.

“We're at the door,” Natasha started.

“And if your civilian is to be believed, you've got a hundred and fifty meters of unknown territory behind that door,” Steve said. “With biological or chemical weapons at the other end, in Lord only knows what state.” His voice went hard and sharp. “Back up topside. We'll find a better way a safer way.”

“Cap, we're on the clock here,” Natasha said, and Clint glanced at her, and back at the door, his eyes clearly indicating that he'd follow her if she went. If she decided to take the risk, he'd be a step behind her. Her lips quirked. Nice to know some things didn't change.

“I am aware. And we need to be alive to do our job. Topside. Now.”

She glanced at Clint, and Clint glanced at her. “I copy that, on our way.”

“This a good idea?” Clint asked, his voice barely audible.

She shrugged. “He could already be dead. He could be fine. No matter what, Hawkeye, we've got to make a choice. I'm going with Cap. If anyone...” Her voice trailed away.

“If anyone has something to lose here, it's him,” Clint agreed. “Let's go.”

*

“When we get Stark back, could you have a chat with him about not exploding everything he touches?” Clint groused, rising his mouth out with water and spitting. “Ugh. Remind me to get a gas mask for the next time we do one of these search and rescue things.”

“I'm honored you think that me saying 'no' would have any effect on Tony's natural impulse to find the the best way to make something go boom,” Steve said, pushing his cowl back. He managed a tired smile in Clint's direction. “I'm pretty sure that it's part of his DNA.”

He hated this. Hated it so much that it was a taste in his mouth. Sifting through hundreds of pounds of rubble, digging his way through, looking for signs of life, chasing the faintest sounds, hoping to find someone still alive. It was more likely that they'd find a body.

Both had been in short supply up until this point. Almost all of the civilians were accounted for, Harris MacIntyre had been the last one still missing. SHIELD agents had been hard at work, and had dug their way through almost all of Hydra's computer banks, pulling data from the ancient, broken equipment was like pulling nails, but Coulson had his ways, and Steve wasn't about to question it.

“How's it going?” Clint asked, his voice low, breaking into Steve's thoughts.

“We're making good progress,” Steve said. He ran a hand through his hair, not caring that his gloves were filthy. “We should be in within a half hour.” He and Thor were doing most of the work, with some of SHIELD's better equipment making up for any deficiencies on their part. They'd located the access and attacked it, but between the missile bay doors and the damage from what now looked like a bomb explosion, it had been slow going. 

Far too slow for Steve's liking.

The StarkPhone that Rhodey had given him vibrated against his hip, and he pulled it from the belt pouch. “Steve Rogers,” he said, taking a seat on a chunk of crumbling stone, his shoulders slumping. “Go ahead.”

There was a pause. “Captain Rogers,” and it was Jarvis, and Steve blinked, his spine going straight, because Jarvis called him Steve now, and Jarvis didn't hesitate, and Jarvis...

Didn't sound like that.

“Jarvis?” he asked, and Clint's head came around, reaching up to remove his red-lensed glasses, but his jaw was tight and hard as his face tipped in Steve's direction.

“I regret to inform you that Mr. Stark's life signs vanished thirty-eight minutes ago,” Jarvis said, and Steve blinked.

That didn't make any sense. “The tracer finally failed?” he asked, and Clint was moving towards him, his hand, still in the archery glove, catching Steve's shoulder. 

“No, sir. I ran the data. Repeatedly.” There was an empty, subdued note in Jarvis' voice. “The tracer would not have failed with such suddenness. All indications were that it was in a slow decline that would've staggered on and off the grid before disappearing. That is not what happened. The vital signs were there, and then they were not. There has been no disruption in the signal, nor has it returned.”

“I don't understand,” Steve said. “If the tracer didn't fail, then why can't we pick it up any longer?” and why was Clint looking so tense above him, his face drained of its normal color, its normal smile, its normal everything, why was Clint staring down at him with agonized eyes in a flat, empty face?

“I believe he is dead, Captain Rogers,” Jarvis said, and his voice was gentle, compassionate, and he was Tony's best creation, wasn't he, this disembodied intelligence that shouldn't have the ability to understand or sympathize with Steve's emotional condition right now, but he did, his voice struggling to stay even, and that brought tears to Steve's eyes, Jarvis' voice wobbling. “I'm sorry. I believe Mr. Stark is gone.”

And Clint was forcing Steve's head down, between his knees, taking the phone from his hand, prying Steve's numb fingers free from the case. His hand shifted to the back of Steve's neck, and it was stupid, this was stupid, because Steve wasn't going to pass out, for God's sake, and he certainly wasn't going to cry, that would be stupid, because Tony wasn't dead. The tracer was twenty-five years old, it had failed, finally failed, Howard had never, ever thought long term, he had been brash and sharp and focused on the now and never thought about how big of a mess he was making for the future.

And Steve wanted to punch his former friend in the face, for the tracer and the empty look in Tony's eyes sometimes and the fact that it was his money, his crazy obsession that pried Steve from the ice at all, that without Howard, Steve would never have woken up, would have have met Howard's son, Howard's remarkable, brilliant, sweet, funny, amazing son. Howard had gone looking for Steve, and Steve hated him for it, hated him with a force that churned his stomach, because without Howard he would never have had to hear those words, get that news. Never had to lose another best friend.

Another person he loved.

Clint's fingers flexed on his neck, and Steve let his eyes close, ignoring what the other man was saying, ignoring the sudden thud of feet moving towards them. There was Coulson's crisp, precise voice mixing with Thor's bellow of rage and the utter silence of Natasha, a silence so heavy as to have its own presence.

Steve straightened up, and they were all there, clustered around him, close enough to touch, and Clint's hand was still on the back of his neck, his expression blank and cold. Natasha was crouched beside Steve, her shoulder almost brushing his leg, her head down, rolling a knife between her fingers with deadly intent. He couldn't see her face, but her posture always gave her away; he knew her well enough to see pain there, in the lines of her body, in the curl of her neck and the flex of her hands. Coulson was back on the periphery, steering SHIELD agents away from them, keeping their secrets, always keeping their secrets. His tone crisp and steady, he acted as if nothing had happened, but he had his sunglasses on and his shoulders were hard beneath the line of his suit jacket. Thor was pacing, his cape swirling around him as he muttered something that sounded like invectives or angry prayers in a language Steve didn't speak. And Bruce was back to being Bruce, arms folded across his chest, head down, huddled into himself like he was braced for a blow. Or as if he'd already received one that he couldn't absorb.

Steve rolled to his feet. “He's not dead until we find a body,” he said, his voice calm. He'd lost comrades, he'd buried family and friends and lost an entire world. He'd listened to his mother's breath rattle to a stop in her lungs, a silence so absolute that he thought his own breathing had faded with hers. He'd seen Bucky disappear into the silence of the mountain's crags, and mustered the courage not to follow by some force of will. He'd begun to believe that death perched on his shoulder, a constant companion, dragging him down, and some day it would choke the fight and the hope and the compassion out of him, but it wasn't today. It was not going to be today.

The team looked at him, and he set his shoulders, forced his fingers to relax. He collected his shield. The weight of it was almost unbearable, a dead weight, limp and cold in his hand. “And if he is dead, we're not leaving him here. We go home as a team. All of us.”

“Damn fuckin' right,” Clint said, lips twitching up beneath hard eyes. 

Breathing was an agony. The push of his blood through his veins was almost unbearable, like his heart was circulating some poison, and doing it willingly. Steve was breathing, that was all, that was all he could manage for now. “You still have Jarvis?” he asked Clint, who nodded and handed the phone back.

Steve took a deep breath. “Jarvis?” he asked.

“Sir?”

And no, no, no, HE was not sir. He was not a replacement for Tony, he was not- He jerked himself back under control. “I need you to keep looking. Until we have something to verify this, I need you to keep looking.”

“Of course,” Jarvis said. “As long as I have access to the network, I will continue.”

“You'll have access. Thank you, Jarvis. If you have anything for us, let us know as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, Captain Rogers.”

Steve cut the connection, and glanced around, meeting each set of eyes. “Coulson, SHIELD doesn't know what we know. Let's keep it that way. If Jarvis is wrong, or the tracker went down some way we weren't expecting, he could still be out there. I want everything SHIELD can throw at us working on that.”

Coulson nodded. “I'll keep them moving in the direction we want,” he said, his voice soft. “Excuse me.” His hand brushed Clint's shoulder as he moved away, the tiny gesture almost lost in the way he turned, but it was heartbreaking in its simplicity. Reassurance and comfort in a subtle touch of fingers.

Clint leaned into it, and no one missed that, and no one would bring that up.

“Thor, we're going in, as fast as we can manage it. As soon as we can clear the scene, the two of us are going to get that bay door open. It's a risk, but-”

“I am ready.” Thor's eyes were tinged with red, but his folded arms bulged with menace. There was rage in his face, in the sharp angle of his jaw, in the way his nostrils flared with each breath, but his eyes were blinking back something very different. “Let us go.”

“We're not losing anyone else,” Steve snapped, and pulled himself back with an iron grip on his emotions. “Bruce, I need you to go through what SHIELD's managed to pry loose from Hydra's databanks. Anything we can learn about what they were doing, and what the chances are that we're walking into a death trap down there. If we are, I want to know what we need to keep ourselves alive.”

Bruce nodded, his fingers twisting into the fabric of the too-big shirt that hung loose over his hunched shoulders. His mouth worked for a second, and finally his lips tightened. “I can do that.” He glanced at Natasha, his head dipped low. “Can you get me an accounting of what we have to work with? A probe system would be best. Something we can use to get readings on the air down there.”

She nodded. “If we don't have it, Doc, Coulson'll get it for us. No one's going in until we know what we're dealing with.” Glancing at Steve, she met his eyes evenly. “That okay with you, Cap?”

“Do it,” he said, giving them a nod. 

Bruce's eyes flicked up, meeting his for a second before sliding away. “I could-”

“No,” Steve said, knowing what he was about to say. “I want you up here. We need you going over the data. Let Thor and I take care of the heavy lifting.”

Bruce took a deep breath, and Steve clapped a hand on his shoulder, squeezing hard. “I appreciate it,” he said, and he did. It wasn't an offer made, or rejected, lightly. Bruce nodded, eyes sliding away from Steve's again, and he fell into step behind Natasha.

“Clint-”

Barton was shaking his head. “Sorry, I've got my orders. I'm sticking with the two of you until you're ready to go in. And as soon as we're sure it's safe, I'll be on your heels.” 

Steve glanced at him, eyes narrowing. “Coulson have me on watch?”

Clint shrugged. “Let's just say I know a little something about desperation. About going after people that everyone else has written off.” His lips twitched, just a little. “I'm with you, but you said it best. We cannot lose anyone else, Cap.”

Steve turned away, nodding even as he did, and he wondered how much Clint and Coulson could communicate, how long they'd worked together, relied on each other, depended on the other one to pick up on hidden meanings and coded gestures. How much of that tiny touch, accepted and ignored, was about mutual comfort and how much was a reminder of the job they still both had to do?

And how much of it was Steve, aching down to his bones, his hands empty, and wondering if he'd ever get the chance to build that sort of rapport with anyone? He'd had it, with Bucky, Bucky whom he'd loved as a brother, as a friend, as a safety and a release. He'd come close with Tony. So close, and now it seemed like his fingers were closing on empty air, and his skin was cold in the absence of that touch.

He wasn't going to risk this. Not ever again. He'd find Tony, and this time, he'd hold on.

*

Clint was inordinately pleased that some of the morons trapped in the missile silo took being rescued as an excuse to start shooting. He was going to shoot the sons-of-bitches anyway, but this way, they deserved it.

Not that he got much of a chance. Rogers was the man with the plan, even if it did seem to be borrowed from Tony's playbook: if it moved, hit it.

Since Clint's personal credo was 'Shoot it til it's dead and if it's not dead, then shoot it,' he wasn't really disapproving of this. He was actually more than a little disappointed when some of the surviving Hydra grunts gave up before meeting the business end of Cap's shield, Thor's hammer, or one of Clint's arrows. 

And since Coulson had his hands full dispatching SHIELD agents and quarantining anything that could get them all killed, Clint had to scramble to keep up with Steve as the man plowed forward, headstrong and heedless, towards his goal. He didn't seem to notice or care about much else, once the resistance, what little there had been, had crumbled, the soldier had just moved, a battering ram in human form, force and precision and intent with every step. 

He peeled back the cowl as he moved, and a fission of something close to fear rolled through Clint. Captain America would do the job; he would protect his team, he would follow the rules, he would stay a soldier until the mission was discharged. Clint had no such assurances about Steve Rogers.

Steve Rogers was a man in pain, and that was a hell of a dangerous thing in the field.

“Cap?” he said, and he hated giving up the high ground, it went against every instinct he had to leave his perch, but Natasha was at the computer banks with Coulson and Thor was moving rubble away from missiles. Clint was the only one left to put his boots in Steve's wake, and he did it without flinching.

“This way,” Steve said, and Clint saw the wires that he was following, remembered Harris' explanation, and shifted his bow a little higher in his hand, dragging his fingers against the curve, flexing his hand against the grip. Without arguing, he fell in behind Steve, pulling a single broadtip arrow from his quiver with a flicker of his arm. 

The stairs were intact through some miracle, and the door at the bottom was hidden in shadow, but it was intact. Steve tried the handle, and shook his head. Clint retreated up the stairs a few steps, notching the arrow and pulling it back to full draw as Steve raised his shield and brought it down on the handle. It sheered free in two blows, and Steve planted a kick next to the broken lock, cracking the door with one blow.

The room inside was still and silent, and as the light leaked in, Clint took in the damage to the equipment, the collapsed wall and the trailing wires, and the single human form, still and silent on the floor. He knew, without moving, without having to take a second look, that it wasn't Stark. The size, the form, it was all wrong, but Steve was moving, shield held high in front of his body. 

“Cap,” Clint started, but Steve was already crouched down, already flipping the man onto his back. The hope had been there until that instant, as Steve struggled against logic, against his own senses. But as the body flopped onto its back, Steve's shoulders went limp, slumping downwards, his massive hands hitting the ground on either side of his body, his spine bowing as if the weight of what he'd found was too much for him.

Clint stepped in, shifting rock and cracked plaster and cement away from his feet as he did. Steve turned back, glancing at Clint, and his face was blank, empty. “It's not him,” he said.

Clint nodded. He stared down at the form, bound hands and feet with duct tape, another strip over his mouth, broken glasses still hanging from one ear and sandy brown hair a mess of debris and dust. His eyes narrowed. “Fuck. Is that Justin Hammer?”

“Yes.” Steve bit the word out as he scrambled back to his feet. “He's still alive, but this-” He waved a gloved hand at the room, at the smashed equipment and stripped wires and the trussed form of Hammer. “This is Tony's work. Except the goddamn room was locked from the inside, and he's not here.” His shoulders rose and fell, agitation and frustration leaking into his face, into his voice, and there was grief in his eyes, an empty, aching darkness that Clint recognized from the mirror. “Where is he?”

Clint shifted, and his booted foot disturbed something. A faint flicker of light brought his head down, and he crouched down, pushing the dirt away. “I don't know,” he said, holding up the phone. There was a smear of blood, like a cut finger had been dragged across the screen. “I don't know. But somebody does. We just have to find out who.”

*

Tony Stark woke up.

And wasn't that a fucking surprise every time it happened. Just to be certain, he opened his eyes and took a deep breath.

Yep, still alive. What were the fucking chances?

And he had no idea where he was. But he was pretty damn sure that he wasn't in Thailand any more.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this, and if you've gotten this far in this story, you know what that means. IT MEANS I'M CRAZY AND NOTHING I AM ABOUT TO DO SHOULD SURPRISE YOU.
> 
> Thank you.

It took a few seconds, and a few blinks, for Tony's vision to clear, or maybe he just thought it did, because everything was white. White ceiling, white walls, white bed with white pillows and white blankets tucked up around his chest. Pale, diffused white light that made up for the lack of windows. White bandages around his ribs, and on the cut and burned spots on his fingers when he held them up in front of his face, flexing his fingers to check that they were still there, still functional. 

Even the rope around his wrists binding his arms together was white.

Tony sighed. He'd known he wasn't in SHIELD medical, because they did not waste a bed this nice on agents dumb enough to get themselves injured. And if it was the Avengers who'd found him a nicer place to crash, one of them would be here, and his restraints wouldn't be quite so pretty. Since he was alone, and these weren't Coulson's 'you really fucked up this time, Stark' handcuffs, he was still not out of the woods.

Time to do a quick inventory.

On the positive side, breathing was no longer an agony, and he no longer smelled like he'd been living in the trunk of a car in the tropics for a week or more. He was clean, his wounds had been tended, no one was standing over him with a gun, and he was in a location that at least made a pretense at safety. That was good. He'd take all of that.

On the negative side, his clothes were gone, and he did not, repeat did not, own bright red silk bikini briefs, so he might be wearing someone else's underwear.

That whole “sexual slavery” thing was looking more and more likely. He'd be surprised, but that did seem like the way that his luck was trending.

Carefully, he pushed himself up, pausing to let a wave of dizziness pass. His stomach growled, and he ignored it. He sat there for a second, waiting, but there was no sound, no reaction. No one came, nothing happened.

But now that he was upright, he could see a pair of folded jeans and a black t-shirt lying on a white table across the room. And that was enough to get him out of bed, risking death in red bikini briefs, because clothing was always good. Especially since, unlike the underwear, the rest of the clothes could've been his. The jeans were battered but clean, and the t-shirt was an AC/DC concert tour shirt.

It wasn't easy getting dressed with his hands bound, but he managed it somehow, and it wasn't the most awkward morning after he'd ever had. And man, that was the saddest thought he'd had in a long time.

There was no way to get the shirt on, not with his hands bound together, but he felt a hell of a lot better now that he had pants on. Amazing how a simple pair of jeans could feel just like putting on the armor, because if he was going to die, if he was going to have to die, he should at least have goddamn pants on.

Tucking the shirt into his waistband so he would have it later, he considered the ropes. The knot was ornate, and overly complicated, but he could work with it if he could find the goddamn ends. He twisted his wrists, and took a deep breath.

That was what worried him the most. The fact that breathing didn't hurt. That nothing hurt, not the way it had, and he remembered it hurting quite a bit. His hands were still a battered mess, but the ribs? Even bound the way they were, it should hurt a lot more than it currently did.

And that meant either someone had intervened with some healing, or he'd been out of it for a very long time. He wasn't sure which of the two options that he liked less, but he wasn't overly fond of either of them. Of course, he was standing around in someone else's goddamn underwear and chewing on some ropes in a non BDSM context, so he probably shouldn't be happy about the whole situation.

Then something dropped over his face, soft and light, a cloth, it was a cloth, and he had an instant, a bare second, to panic, before large, heavy hands were closing around his arms, lifting him off of his feet.

Tony lashed out, kicking and flailing, his whole body arching in the grip, because he had been alone, he was sure he'd been alone in a room with no visible doors and there had been no one there, and now he was being carried, the grip on his arms wrong, something wrong, he wasn't sure what, or why, but he couldn't get free. The grip tightened as he intensified his struggles, and he felt pressure of fingers, but that wasn't right, it wasn't the right size or the right shape, or the right spread for fingers, and he was being moved against his will.

And when he was set down on his feet, when the fabric was pulled from his face, he jerked back, hard against that grip, and his vision swam with the burst of light. Blinking, confused, he stared at the familiar shape of the Iron Man armor, the helmet battered and shoulders scarred with fighting, but it was his, it was his armor that was staring him down. The Mark III.

That was bad. Before he even turned his head, before the noise began, before he was shifted forward to stand in front of the immense metal platform that held his crippled armor, before he could take in the size and shape and WRONGNESS of who was holding him, his vision was focused on the Mark III and his brain just produced a single word.

Fuck.

*

Bruce pulled his glasses off, rubbing the bridge of his nose with tense fingers. “I'm not doubting you, Jarvis. You found him twice, and that means it works, I, I just don't understand.” He tossed his glasses down on the table, and they slid over to rest against the phone that connected him with Tony's AI. “I'm trying. But I can't make sense of these readings.”

Coming to his feet, he bent over the printouts that he'd spread across the table. His headache was radiating throughout his whole body, his neck and shoulders and back stiff.

“I understand, Dr. Banner, but I cannot risk sending the data through unsecured methods,” Jarvis said. “This method is not to my liking, either, but it is all I can manage.”

“Yeah.” Bruce rubbed a hand over his face. “I do appreciate you getting me this much, but when I get the packets and print them out, it's-” There was a knock on the door, and he paused. They'd found an unoccupied lab for him to work, and if there was some lingering pocket of Hydra resistance, he doubt they'd bother to knock, but still. 

He straightened up. “Sorry, Jarvis, I need to go,” he said, reaching for the phone.

“I understand, Dr. Banner. Please let me know if I can provide you with anything further.”

“Thanks, Jarvis.” Bruce cut the connection. “Yes?” he called.

Natasha poked her head in. “Hey, Doc.”

Bruce glanced up. “Ah, hey.” He rubbed a heavy hand over his eyes, blinking hard to focus on Natasha. “Sorry, I'm a little out of it here, aren't I?” He waved her in. “We have news?”

“Not the news we want.” She stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind her, but she didn't take her hand off of the doorknob. “They got a charge into that phone that Barton found, and got it unlocked. It's Hammer's, and there were no calls made. There is, however, a video file. The SHIELD techs watched it long enough to determine that it is Stark, and he's addressing the Avengers before they stopped it.”

Bruce felt his stomach sink, a hollow, empty feeling settling in low in his body. He reached for his glasses, his fingers fumbling across the wire stems. “Ah, so, he made a-” He stared down at the table. “We don't know what's on there?”

“No,” she said, and she looked tired, more tired than he'd ever seen her. There were faint dark circles under her eyes, her lush lips pulled tight. Her shoulders were against the panel of the door, not so much leaning as propping herself up, taking a tiny bit of pressure off of her body. “Coulson wants to watch it first, but we argued that the team has the right to be there.” She paused, her eyes focused on the table. After a moment of stillness, she dragged her chin back up, meeting Bruce's eyes. “Clint's talking to Thor, and Coulson's going over the situation with Steve.”

Bruce flinched, the physical reaction immediate and beyond his ability to control, and he hated that. Hated that he could still give himself away that way. He folded his arms over his chest, rubbing a thumb over the rough fabric of his borrowed shirt. “Yeah, that's-” He brought a hand up, scrubbing his fingers over his mouth, over the stubble-rough lines of his jaw. “Yeah,” he said. “Um, so they sent you to, what? Talk to me?”

Natasha's eyes dropped, an expression of sadness flickering across her features. “To give you the option,” she said, and her voice was gentle. “If you want to be there, that's your right. If you want us to watch it first and give you the gist, and let you watch it alone, or when you feel you can handle it, I'll let everyone know that you're hip deep in the important stuff.” She waved a hand at the table. “Which is the truth.”

He stared down at the pages. “Yeah.” He took a deep breath, feeling the stress and the pressure and pain building. He closed his eyes, bracing his hands on the edge of the table, letting his fingers dig into the wood. The ache in his fingers, in his wrists, gave him a point of focus, something to concentrate on. He sucked in a breath, slow and easy. “Yeah.” He pushed himself up, flexing his hands. “Where are we doing this?”

Natasha met his eyes, steady and calm, and he liked this woman, he'd always kind of liked this woman. “It's okay,” he said, trying for a smile, and it felt tight and unnatural on his face. “I want to know, and I want-” His fingers twisted together, skin rubbing tight against skin. “To be with the team.”

“We want you there,” she said, immediate and firm. “But I know this is tough for you. You have the right to handle it however you need to. We've all got our ways of coping.”

“Yeah.” He pried his hands away and began sweeping the pages into a nearby folder, reluctant to leave anything out. “Can you help me with, uh, with this?”

She moved to the opposite side of the table and began picking everything up. “You having any luck?”

“No. I doubt I will, either, until I have a chance to-” He paused, frustrated, and the other guy shifted in the back of his mind, the presence digging into his consciousness like fingers sinking into the flesh of his back. The figurative monkey on his back, but his was big and green, and liable to leapfrog right beyond him, dragging Bruce along in his destructive wake.

Bruce gritted his teeth, the pressure of his jaw intensifying his headache, and the other guy subsided. Because he'd never do that to Natasha again. Not ever. He'd nearly killed her once, and she was still standing in front of him, not afraid, not disgusted, not even wary; she'd given him a second chance. He wasn't going to squander it, he wasn't going to do that again.

“I need access to the full spectrum of the data,” he said, taking the pages she offered him. She picked up the StarkPhone. “I'm getting bits and pieces, like trying to look through a massive star map with a microscope. I'm getting a good look, but the area I can see is so small as to be useless.” He tucked the folders under his arm, rubbing the stiff muscles of his neck with his free hand. “I need to get back to Avengers Tower and get a broad view of what Jarvis has been doing.”

She nodded, accepting that. “We can send you back, if you want.”

Bruce shook his head. “No, thanks. I want to be here. If you need me. If you need, you know, us.”

“We always need you, Doc.” She gave him a faint smile. “C'mon. I'd like to have us there before Coulson brings Cap in. He doesn't need to wait any longer than he has to.”

Bruce nodded. “How's he, uh, how's he holding up?”

Natasha gave him a look. “About as well as you might imagine. He's lost a lot of people. It doesn't get any easier. If we don't find Stark soon-” She shrugged, her lips going flat. “How're you holding up?” she asked, her head tipping in Bruce's direction.

“Okay.” He hugged the folders to his chest. “Fine. I'll- I've got my ways of dealing with it. You know.”

“I do,” she agreed. Eyes glinting, she gave him a smile and it was a real one. “We all do.” Her fingers brushed his arm, light on his bicep, but it was contact, and he was grateful for it. “We've cleared the buildings,” she said, and he as grateful for the change of subject. “Evacuated the science staff and the Hydra agents. We're still looking for anyone that might've been buried in the collapse of the main facility, but for the time being, it's just SHIELD dealing with anything and everything that's left.

“Coulson's setting up some living quarters for us, we'll make sure that everything that's still here won't be a problem to leave behind, and that we're not missing anything. There's another team coming in to take everything out, the science staff had personal effects in the barrack building, and Hydra had some things we'd like to take a look at. We'll be here for a few days, unless we get another lead.”

A few days, Bruce thought, long enough to discover a body or find the reason for the explosion that had rocked the compound. He just nodded, following her silently.

He didn't want to think about Tony Stark's body. About all that force and brilliance and strength snuffed out, because it didn't seem possible.

It certainly wasn't logical.

Thor and Clint were already in the small room when Natasha opened the door. Bruce slipped in, and she brushed a gentle touch against the small of his back. Bruce managed a smile for the other two men, and Thor returned it, his eyes narrowed as his broad hands played with the leather strap of Mjolnir. Clint glanced up, a battered arrowhead rolling around and around his equally battered fingers. As always, he looked first to Natasha, who gave him a brisk nod.

Bruce took a seat against the wall, reassured by the presence of the others, their warmth and their physicality, and it helped keep the other guy back. Loneliness had never worked out well for him, even though it was almost always better for everyone else.

Thor's hand landed on his shoulder, and he leaned into it for a second, because Thor could hold the other guy back when he was in full swing, and that meant Bruce wasn't alone in keeping his alter ego under control.

Steve came through the door a step ahead of Coulson, his steps brisk, his face and uniform covered in stone dust and dirt. His eyes flicked through the room, a gesture that Bruce had recently come to understand. Cap was counting heads, checking his ducklings. He did it all the time, no matter what they were doing, or where they were, every so often, Cap would just crane his head around, getting a bead on each of his teammates, locating them, memorizing their positions.

And in those moments, when Steve glanced around, when he couldn't locate someone, either on the battlefield or in the Avenger's kitchen, or here, there was a tenseness to him, a sharp tension that bordered on brittleness. Bruce wondered if he'd always been like this, or if it was World War II that had done it to him, that had burned into his head the need, the obsession, to know where his team was at all times. 

Had he always been protective, even when he'd been incapable of protecting anyone?

Coulson was carrying a battered phone. “We think,” he said with no other preamble, “that Stark took this off of Justin Hammer and managed to get access to it. A call to the Avengers emergency number was attempted, but there wasn't reception enough to carry it out. It looks like he utilized the video feature to leave a message.”

He plugged the phone into a large screen and triggered it. There was a flicker, and then the screen lit up. Bruce gritted his teeth, playing with with the ragged hem of his shirt, glad for the tactile sensation. 

Tony Stark blinked out at them, dressed in a Hydra uniform and looking like a building had fallen on him. Judging by the state of the room behind him, it had. Filthy and battered, a heavy bruise under one eye and blood marring his right temple, he squinted, trying to confirm that the phone was recording. His face smoothed out, and he smiled. “Okay, first of all,” he said, and his voice was a shock, so familiar and it felt like it had been forever since Bruce had last heard it. “I just want to say? If I'm unconscious in medical, and you're watching this, turn it off right now.” He stabbed a finger at them through the screen. “Barton, that means you. This is a dick move, if you're watching this while I'm injured. Turn it off.”

He paused, eyes narrowed. “If I'm awake and cackling like a loon behind you, good. You're an idiot, Stark, don't, don't let them watch this. This is why no one trusts you, because you do stupid things like this, Jesus, can we please have some dignity? Is that too much to ask?”

Another pause, and then he smiled. “Barton, you're a dick.”

Clint flipped him off, grinning. “Right back at you, Stark.”

“Anyway,” Tony said, rubbing a hand over his face, and his fingers were shaking. He made a face at them and glanced back at the phone. His eyes were unfocused, dark and he leaned back against the broken wall. “I'm assuming that you're watching this to amuse yourselves, which is, can I just say, that's not nice. I know, I deserve it, but still, not nice.”

His eyes fluttered shut, and he took a deep breath. His face shifted in the shadows, and the blood caught the glow. “I know you're here,” he said. “I know you got what I was saying, I know you were right behind me. So I made promises to a whole bunch of people that I'm expecting all of you to uphold. It's a pretty lousy move on my part, but you all should be used to it. 

“The science staff has letters from me, they'll tell you what's happening. There's a kid, Harris, he was-” Tony took a deep breath, blinking hard. “He was still down here, dumbass didn't know when to call it quits. Coulson, you may want to keep an eye out for him. I need-” He coughed. “I need you to find him. He was here. He was- The only reason I got this far, so do me a favor, if I'm being a lazy ass and taking a nap? Find him. Make sure he gets out, please.”

Tony paused, took a deep breath. “Two things. If everyone's out, thanks. I knew you'd be right behind me and I risked a hundred or so lives on that. Don't ever tell me I'm not a team player, or that I don't trust all of you. Except Fury, if you're watching this, sir?” He held his fingers up in a V in front of his eyes and flicked them towards the screen. “Watching you. Still don't trust you.”

Bruce choked on a laugh, and slapped a hand over his mouth, but Thor echoed it, rubbing a hand across Bruce's shoulders hard enough to rock him back and forth in his seat. His eyes burned; he blinked hard to keep it from being more than that, because no one else in this room needed to see him fall apart, it wasn't useful, it wan't right, he knew better, but when he glanced back, Thor's eyes were bright and wet and he was smiling at Bruce, like everything was normal.

“Second thing, and this is IMPORTANT,” phone Tony said, his voice stern. “I am not kidding here. I know what you're thinking and no. Fuck you. The rules clearly state that if we're on a mission on movie night, then the right to choose the movie passes to the next movie night. Just because I was in a Hydra compound in fucking Thailand on Thursday does NOT mean it's your turn next week, Thor. Suck it up, it is still my turn, Cap's going to back me up on this, you'd better back me on this, Steve, it is still my turn to chose, and we're watching Flash Gordon. The bad one.”

He paused. “The really, really bad one. Just so we're clear.” He sucked in a breath, and his face was pale. “Okay? Movie night. Us. Flash Gordon. An' I want egg foo young this time from the Chinese place, screw it, I don't care if everyone else thinks it's nasty, I'm ordering it.” His eyes were closed, and he jerked back upright. “Running out of battery here, and, well, to be honest? I'm running out of ideas.

“Sorry, guys, think I used up my last brilliant escape plan, at least for a while.” His words were slurred at the edges, his gaze unfocused. “So I'm going to just, just wait here. I'll see you when you get your asses down here, okay? Don't-” He sucked in a slow breath, then another, and his face twisted, his hand going to his side. “It'll be fine, I'm just going to-”

The image died abruptly.

There was a long moment of silence. “Phone run out of battery?” Clint asked.

“It would appear so.” Coulson was pale, his lips tight, his eyes narrowed as he checked the phone. “I'll get the techs to make sure there's nothing else on here, pull the video file if anyone wants to review it again.”

“There's nothing of use to it,” Steve said, pushing himself away from the wall. Bruce had been attempting not to look at him, and now found he couldn't look away. Steve was staring at the blank screen, and he looked old. “Except for the timestamp.”

“Timestamp?” Bruce asked, the word slipping out before he could stop it.

“We were in the building when it was taken,” Steve said, his mouth twitching. “We were here. We got that close.”

“Doc?” Natasha said. “You have a diagnosis?”

Bruce shifted in his chair, his fingers twitching against the fabric of his shirt. “I can't,” he said, shaking his head. “Not off of a few minutes of footage, there's too many variables, I can't-”

“Bruce?” Steve asked, and his eyes were clear and bright, his eyebrows pinched, those hard lines that appeared on his forehead when he was at his limit. “Try. Please.”

Bruce let his eyes shut, and took a deep breath, releasing it in a shuddering slow push. “Probable concussion,” he said. “Breathing is labored, there's a wet note to it. The way he was holding himself, he's got broken ribs. I would've preferred he wasn't, uh, clearly about to fall unconscious at the end of that, but from what I could see, his pupils were even. He was clear headed enough to hold himself together, he was aware of the situation. Aware of his location.” 

He paused. Shook his head, just a little. “He was with us. I don't know what happened, obviously, after the video went dead. But he was with us up until the end of it.” He glanced up, at each of them, meeting eyes. “Bearing anything we don't know about, he's likely still alive.”

He felt some of the tension go out of the room, but Steve was still blank, his eyes hollow and empty.

“He's still planning on making our lives a living hell,” Clint said, with a faint smile. “That's good, right?”

Steve pushed away from the wall. “Saturday at the Stork Club, eight o'clock, on the dot,” he said. “I lied, too.”

He walked out of the room without a single look back.

*

So, as it turned out, reason number five for kidnapping Tony Stark was not to sell him into sexual slavery (excellent) but rather to deliver him to a space cult that appeared to be worshiping the damaged remains of the Iron Man armor (to reiterate his previous impression of the situation: fuck). 

At least the white slave trade would've made some fragment of rational sense.

Tony swayed on his feet, staring at the blank faceplate of his own abandoned armor. Confusion, terror, and frustration combined to make this even more surreal than it should've been. And since he was standing on an altar, face to face with the Mark III suit, battered and torn and missing most of one arm (he'd needed the repulsor gauntlet to blow his way out of Dodge that day) as an alien chanted in a language Tony didn't understand, it was pretty damn surreal to begin with. The Iron Man armor had been lost during a particularly unpleasant battle with the Skrulls, none of them had been happy to leave it behind, but they hadn't had a choice at the time. Tony had never expected to see it again, let alone see it sitting on an alien altar.

He rolled his aching head to the side, letting it loll on his neck as he stared out over the massive room. There was no mistaking that this was a temple. Weird, technologically advanced temple, but all the signs were there. Huge, arched ceilings, broad columns, massive windows that glowed with an unearthly and subdued light, and, oh, yeah, about six hundred robed aliens chanting and bowing in unison.

This was officially the weirdest damn day of Tony's life.

“I do not know what's going on here,” Tony said to the head robed alien guy, the one whose robe was a little different, a little more ornate, the one standing at the altar between Tony and his discarded suit, “but I'm officially requesting a translator or a representative from the American embassy. Or some scotch. At least some scotch..”

The aliens on either side of him, the ones holding his arms with huge, three fingered hands, shifted him forward, and Tony stumbled, his feet scraping on the metal floor. His bound hands were lifted up and placed on the altar, and yeah, he was not a fan of that, there was so many ways that hands on an altar could, you know, end badly. He lifted one foot and snapped it out, hitting the edge of the altar and throwing himself back with all the force that his strained and exhausted body could produce, trying to rip himself out of the alien hands.

They didn't seem to notice. They certainly didn't move.

The High Priest was chanting louder now, working the crowd into a frenzy, and Tony was not surprised when he pulled a massive, glowing knife out of his robes, holding it up above his head.

“Fuck, no.” It was a flat rejection of the whole situation. “You want a virgin sacrifice, you'll have to find me when I was fourteen, because that is not happening right now, I am done with this, with all of this, and I am not dying on a fucking altar in front of the Mark III for fuck's sake, I have made exponential improvements since this piece of shit, do not even try me on this, I am not in the mood. I may not be a mutant, but I am pissed off enough right now to kill you with my mind.”

The chanting didn't even slow down.

The knife flashed, and High Priest of the Temple of Tony Stark's Busted and Abandoned Shit, and yes, that was totally what he was going to call these blue-green nutballs, bowed low over the altar. Tony struggled, his whole body a live wire of whatever force he could still muster because he might be about to die, but he was going to die biting SOMETHING, anything that got close enough or maybe kicking someone's face, he was going down fighting the entire fucking way because he'd never been smart enough to just admit that he was beaten. The High Priest turned to Tony, and Tony's guards held his bound hands down on the metal, held him still as he flailed and twisted and snarled like a mad dog, and the knife snapped up and crashed down.

It bit into the metal of the altar with a strangely liquid clang, and the bonds on Tony's hands fell away. “You are a fucking death tease,” Tony snarled at him, because his heart was going a mile a minute and that was not good for the arc reactor, not at all.

The assembled crowd cheered, leaping to their feet and waving their arms. As Tony watched, completely confused, they started to dance and the noises they made became something lyrical and lilting, a bright, happy song that echoed through the room. Everywhere, hands were folding into hands and robes sliding back on thin speckled arms as they were raised to the ceiling.

“Okay, I- I don't know what's going on here. Can someone please tell me what's going on here?” Tony asked, his voice plaintive.

The guards were lifting Tony off his feet, carrying him away from the altar, down the long path through the crowd, and the aliens were giving way, their mouths moving and their fingers fluttering around Tony's head and bare shoulders and chest as he passed, and what the hell, he was getting petted, which was very strange. Not unpleasant, just strange, and he tried to meet eyes, look at faces. Their eyes were large and dark, and their mouths were smiling, broad flat noses a darker blue-green than the rest of their skin, something like freckles across the bridges, that matched the spots on their hands and wrists. They were crowding close, reaching out, and he didn't know why, but they were talking to him, at him.

Tony and the guards and the High Priest reached the massive doors to the temple and they opened, hinges groaning with the weight, to allow the group to pass through and behind them, Tony was pretty sure that everyone was singing and doing a maypole dance or something equally strange. “Am I dead?” Tony asked Thing 1, who didn't look down at him. “No, seriously,” he said, rolling his head around to Thing 2. “I deserve the right to know. If I'm dead, you have to tell me. I'm pretty sure that's in the rules. How'd I die? Oh, tell me it was not Hammer. If it was Justin Hammer, I am taking this afterlife by force, I swear I am, because I am not going down like that. I demand to die of excellent sex, excellent booze, or a kickass battle-winning move that saves my team and preferably a good chunk of the eastern seaboard.”

Thing 1 made a whirring, chirping sound at him, and Tony frowned. That sounded familiar. Why did that sound familiar? “Pardon?” he asked, because Steve would expect him to be polite if this was a first contact situation. Of course, first contact had happened when they'd snatched him out of Hydra's tawdry excuse for a super villain lair, but that was not something that Tony had any control over.

And since no one was trying to kill him at this exact moment, he could at least pretend to be a civilized human being.

Thing 2 chirped, too, and Tony swiveled his head to look in that guard's direction. “Oh, I agree,” he said, blinking. “But you're ignoring the long term effect of palladium mining on indigenous peoples and also that, really, letting Doom get his hands on anything of the sort would outweigh any potential benefits.” He nodded, with a charming smile, and he was pretty sure the guard was smiling back, if that was a mouth, yeah, a smiling mouth? Or maybe just a set of gills? “So let's not do that. I don't suppose you guys have coffee? I would kill for a cup of coffee right now.”

The Head Priest hurried ahead of them and opened up a door in the hallway wall that Tony hadn't even been aware was there. He stepped through and the guards followed after him, dragging Tony along for the ride.

Another huge room. Tony didn't have much time to look around before he was carried over to a black topped counter and placed, with more delicacy than he expected, on a weird floating little disc, and it gave a little beneath his weight and then stabilized. He glanced down, eyebrows arching as he realized it was some sort of high tech seat, and the black counter in front of him was a lab bench, littered with trays of tools and supplies and hey, neat, alien lab goggles adjusted for human eye placement.

And it appeared he was back in kidnapping reason three: they wanted something built.

His shoulders slumped, and he looked up. Dozens of aliens were creeping forward, fingers fluttering and heads bobbing as they chatted amongst themselves. Tony glanced around. “What do you want from me?” he asked, bracing his folded arms on the counter, because there was no rescue coming for him here. Even if he was in range of someone from earth finding him, there was no rescue coming. He was in a place so far removed from home that it might as well be an other dimension. Hell, it might be another dimension, what did he know? But it wasn't Earth, and he had no idea if he was on their planet or a ship, but here he was. No one was coming for him.

And if he lived or not probably would have a lot to do with what kind of a weapon they expected him to make.

The High Priest was making shooing motions with his hands, and the aliens backed up, robes fluttering and feet tapping on the ground, and as Tony looked beyond them, he realized the room was filled with lab benches, filled with floating stools and tools and aliens.

Also a couple of hundred toaster boxes.

He blinked at the piles of boxes, some open, some still sealed, all different brands and sizes and shapes and some toaster ovens thrown in there, and there were toasters on every lab bench except the one in front of him, aliens holding toasters and disassembling toasters and putting them back together.

“This is all some sort of elaborate prank, isn't it?” Tony said. “This is... What, did Clint put you up to this? This seems like something he'd do. Am I in Chicago? The last time he decided to make my life a living hell I ended up in Chicago.”

And then the High Priest put a toaster down in front of him.

Tony looked at the toaster, and then up at the alien, who looked oddly hopeful for a thing with no eyebrows. He looked back at the toaster. “You're kidding. You are FUCKING KIDDING ME.”

The aliens started babbling at each other, gathering around to gesture and chirp and point at Tony, look at Tony, discuss Tony. Tony sat very still, and the High Priest held up a hand. Everyone went silent, and the alien waved a hand in the air.

A holographic display, amazingly detailed and pristine, snapped up on the counter, making Tony jump. He leaned in, frowning as what was clearly a puff piece on the Avengers and Stark Tower started to play. Clint and Thor were laughing at each other, Clint perched on a counter and Thor leaning against the wall as Calcifer the toaster rolled back and forth between them. There was no audio, but Tony determined that he would, in fact, kill them both when he got back home.

Because they were showing off his goddamn toaster, and that would appear to be why he'd been kidnapped by space aliens.

“Okay,” Tony said, taking a deep breath. “You want me-” He placed his hand flat on his chest. “To make this-” He put a hand on the toaster in front of him. “Like that?” He moved his other hand up to point at the Avengers' toaster, which was currently launching toast in the air for Clint to pick off in midair with arrows. Tony moved his 'this toaster' and 'that toaster' fingers together. “Same?”

The High Priest was nodding, the movement large and exaggerated, like a horse throwing its head around, and Tony understood that it was trying to make its intent clear. They wanted a Calcifer toaster.

“You're fucking kidding me,” Tony said, and let his head fall to the bench in front of him. “You do realize that I hold 423 patents. I built the most advanced AI ever. Armor that privatized world peace. A flight stabilization system that was light years beyond anything anyone had even dreamed of. I created an element. I miniaturized the ARC REACTOR with a box of SCRAPS in a CAVE.” His head snapped up. “And you have dragged me off my home planet because you want my toaster.”

The High Priest pointed at the hologram, all but vibrating with eagerness.

“I will punch Clint in the face so hard that he will have to pry his teeth off the back of his skull,” Tony said. 

He reached for the toaster. “Fine. Great. Let's do this crazy thing.” His fingers brushed it, and the room went completely nuts. Tony repressed the urge to scream and throw himself back off of his fancy floating stool, because there were aliens everywhere and they were talking and fluttering their fingers around his head and shoulders and brushing his beard with delicate touches and he was pretty sure that was laughter.

It was all very disconcerting.

He held himself very, very still until it died down, until the Head Priest had taken a seat across from him, until the mob of aliens had somewhat disbursed. They stayed within range, of course, curious, hopeful eyes and moving mouths and amazing fingers as they returned to their work. Tony tried to ignore how they were staring, but yeah. A little disconcerting.

Okay, totally fucking disconcerting.

Tony fumbled at his waistband, and was glad to find the shirt was still tucked there. The High Priest turned to a thin, willowy alien that was approaching the bench, and Tony took the moment to pull the shirt on, because hey, not half-naked, that was good. He was reaching for something that he was pretty sure was a screwdriver when the head alien reached across the bench, depositing a familiar cup on the counter in front of him. Tony stared at it.

He'd never been so happy to see the Starbucks logo before in his life.

“You got me coffee.” He refused to take his eyes off of it, it might disappear. Cautiously, hope making his heart pound, he reached over and picked up the cup. It was warm to the touch, and he pried the lid free. Steam rose from the surface, curling over the edges and filling the air with the familiar scent of a dark roast Sumatra blend. Tony wanted to cry.

It could've been poisoned, and he would not have cared.

He took a sip, tentative as he could make the gesture. The liquid spilled across his tongue, and he moaned. “Okay,” he managed. “We can be friends.” Risking a burnt tongue, he chugged half the cup without so much as bothering to breathe.

Coffee. He wanted to cry. Somehow, things didn't seem nearly so bad all of a sudden.

And it was perfect, it was the perfect cup of coffee, it was just the way he liked it. At this point, he would've drunk a lukewarm cup of instant Folgers with some non-dairy creamer, but it was a miracle, this was a miracle, because it was perfect.

He froze, cup at his lips. It was perfect. It was... Exactly the way he liked it.

Tony pulled the cup away from his mouth, rotating it to check the marks along the side. It was perfect. It was just the way he took his coffee. His eyes narrowed. There was a little star after the sugar notation, a gesture he was familiar with from the Starbucks across from the Tower. Maybe it was used company wide, but he'd never seen it used at any other Starbucks, or maybe he hadn't been paying attention, because really, once the coffee was in it, and on its way to his mouth, the cup was just a delivery system.

But something was there. Something...

Tony stared over the edge of the cup at the hologram that was still playing on a loop. His eyes narrowed as he considered the image. Slowly, his movements careful and precise, he put the cup back down on the workbench. “That,” he said, looking up at the head alien, “is not the kitchen. That's my workshop. No one films in my workshop. Hell, I usually don't film in my workshop.”

He took a deep breath, his mind spinning. “There is no way you picked this up from a transmission. There's not even a chance that you pulled this from Jarvis' data banks. So where, exactly, did you get this?”

The High Priest blinked at him, the movement of the translucent lids slow and deliberate. His mouth worked, and that soft, rhythmic sound washed over Tony. Tony shook his head. “I don't understand.” He pointed at the hologram. “This is my home. My people. How did you get this?”

There was no reply that he could understand.

Frustrated, Tony turned back to the image. Tried to think. Caffeine, that was his friend, and lack of caffeine had been why he'd been so goddamn stupid up until this point. Because he didn't believe in coincidences and he didn't believe in chance, but mathematical surety was a myth told to children who were seduced by the idea of theory. 

The how and the why, the possibilities weren't nearly so important as the fact that he could remember the physical layout of the room. He half lived in that workshop, he knew every inch of it. He could see the workshop, and lay the image over it. Find the point of origin, based on the angles, on the set camera, he could lay it out and see-

See the small object lying on a shelf above his primary workbench. A small object he'd placed there, within sight and out of immediate reach, an object he could see clearly now, as clearly as the first time he'd picked it up, when it had lain in his palm, a child's toy or a nuclear warhead, a puzzle to be solved.

Pandora's box.

His eyes snapped open. “Fuck me.” He turned to the High Priest, who was still sitting there, patient and calm and still, waiting, waiting for Tony's goddamn stupid brain to catch up. “Wow. I am a moron. I broke my own prime rule. When you find some alien tech lying in a goddamn fucking alien trash dump, maybe you shouldn't. Bring. It. Home.” 

But he had. He'd brought it home and brought it to the workshop, and it had sat there, inert and ignored, but he'd brought it home. Into the heart of Avengers tower, he'd brought that thing back.

He fumbled on the workbench, grabbing something that felt like paper, thin and sleek and flexible. As if knowing what he wanted, the alien pushed a small object closer to his fingers, and he picked it up. The High Priest reached out and rotated it, setting one end against the page and wrapping Tony's fingers around the slim metal rod. Experimenting, Tony pressed down and was gratified to see the dark mark that followed the contact. His hand moved over the sheet in front of him, and he sketched it out in a couple of sharp, brutal strokes. He held it up. “You made this.”

The alien looked at the image of the small object, the one thing Tony had wanted, the one thing he'd needed, the one thing in Bartonia that he hadn't been able to leave behind, hadn't been able to risk letting Fury find, the one and only object that terrified him. The one thing he'd buried in an armload of bigger, brighter, more eye-catching trash, to camouflage his true intent. And nodded.

“You made this,” Tony said, feeling numb. “Your people. You made this, and then I opened it. I- Saw. And I broke my own rule and I took it home and left it sitting on my fucking workbench, and somehow, somehow you've been using it, you've been able to see me through it. You've been watching me.”

He stared down at the drawing, dizzy with it. “You've been watching me for months.”

The alien reached out and covered the image with one hand. And offered the other to Tony, making a gesture that he interpreted as 'come here.' He stared at the High Priest. “You've been watching me.”

The hand stayed there, hanging in mid-air, patient, waiting, and left with no choice, Tony took it.

*

Steve's boots pounded down the hall, empty and echoing and so like a tomb that he couldn't breathe. The air was thick with chemicals and decay and something that he didn't want to think about, didn't want to even consider, because it was like burning hair but worse, acrid and sharp and nauseating. 

He was moving, and trying to be quiet, but time was running out, they'd told him, they'd told him no one came back, and they'd said it with pity in their eyes, the flat, broken acceptance of men who'd seen their friends and comrades die, because any pity they had left, that was all the pity left in this world. War had no pity, not for them, not for anyone, and it was perhaps miraculous that they could manage any pity for Steve.

Or perhaps they knew what he would find, in this tomb for the dead and dying. This tomb that threatened to swallow him, the echoes disappearing into cold silence. Maybe they'd saved the last of their pity for a man who'd come so close and still lost everything.

Ahead, in the dark shadows of the corridor, a form came pelting out of a side room, huddled down over a heap of paper in his arms, a bag clutched close to his chest. For an instant, they both froze, Steve at one end, the unknown monster, a creeping evil with shuffling feet, at the other. And then the Hydra scientist was running away, disappearing into the darkness, and Steve didn't care.

He only cared about the room the thing had left.

Running full out now, not caring for noise or if he was spotted or caught, he just ran, legs churning out the distance faster than he'd run since that first day. Since the day he'd run down the Hydra agent who'd shot Dr. Erskine, his new body strange and uncertain and barely controlled. He ran now, faster than he'd ever run, and it was worth it.

The room was awash in blue green light, sickly and sickening, and Steve could see the table across the room, see the form lashed to the metal, and his breath died in his lungs. Stumbling, tripping over his own feet, he fumbled across the room, grabbing for the edge of the table, ignoring the smell of blood and bile and something he couldn't identify, something that terrified him.

He was shaking as he grabbed the straps, ripped them free, the bolts pinging across the floor like projectiles. “Bucky,” he managed, wanting to sob, to cry, he'd come so far, he'd come all this way, risked everything, and it was worth it, because Bucky was here, still alive, thank God, thank God. “Bucky-”

Steve froze, his hands gripping the fabric of the uniform, and he was shaking, he was coming apart, because the face was wrong. It wasn't Bucky, it wasn't his best friend, lying on the table, waiting for him.

It was Tony, his eyes open and blank, his lips rimmed in red, and there was nothing left of his chest, it was hollow and empty and a gaping wound where the arc reactor should've been. Steve scrambled at the skin, trying to push down, but the blood was cold and tacky beneath his fingers, and there was no fixing this; Tony was dead, and Steve couldn't let him go, couldn't do anything but listen to the screams and know it was him making that noise.

Tony's eyes were blank and empty and the front of Steve's uniform, the first Captain America uniform, the one that was a joke and a prop and a lie, was spattered with blood, with Tony's blood, and he couldn't let go, he couldn't let go and he would be buried here in the concrete tomb that Hydra had built for them both.

“Steve.”

He came awake on a scream, silent and choked and frozen like a lump of ice in his throat, but he could hear it in his ears. The scream, and it was horrible and raw and broken.

His vision cleared, and the ghost in front of him solidified, until Natasha's pale, perfect face was a hole in the darkness. She was steady, calm, her eyes dark pools in the subdued light, and he r  
ealized her hands were on his cheeks. Her thin fingers cradled the weight of his jaw, her thumb stroking his cheekbone as she whispered his name.

Steve sucked in a breath, and another, his body heaving with it, leaning into the small touch. “Sorry,” he managed after a second.

She didn't say anything, but her hands fell away from his face. He had an instant to regret the loss of the warmth, the night air almost unbearably cold against his wet skin, and then her arms were wrapping around him. He froze, startled, still trapped in the nightmare, as her arms settled around his shoulders. She pulled him close, pulled him down, ignoring the awkward stiffness of his frame.

He held himself separate, held himself together, for another moment, and it was a struggle, it was the hardest thing he'd ever done. Natasha's fingers stroked the nape of his neck, and that was it, as if that tiny gesture of kindness was enough to shatter his control.

Steve curled into her, his face against her shoulder, his arms around her waist, his whole body shuddering with the force of his grief. He wasn't aware of the tears, of the soft, broken sounds he was making, he was only aware of her shifting, aligning their bodies a bit closer, her delicate form somehow supporting his. 

She was crying, he could feel it, but she didn't make a sound, didn't allow her breathing to change. He could feel her tears, where her cheek rested against his hair, could feel them in the way she held herself, the way she held Steve. She cried silently. Stoically. She cried with all her heart.

Steve didn't have her control, and he didn't want it. The fear, the grief was unbearable, a leaden weight in his chest, a clawing agony in his throat, a nausea that he had to choke down. The faces wouldn't stay seporate, they defied his attempts to catagorize his loved ones as living and dead, and Tony became Bucky became Tony and he sobbed against Natasha's shoulder as she rocked him back and forth.

At some point she began singing, her voice low and gentle and sad, the words foreign to him; he'd never learned more than half a dozen Russian phrases, but this was a lullaby. No matter the language, that was clear. He closed his eyes and curled close, and let the memories of his mother, so long dead, mix with the comfort she offered. Her voice was soft and gentle, and her hand stroked his hair, and he squeezed his eyes shut tight and tried to forget.

Steve's eyes snapped open and it was light out, the pale light of the approaching dawn, but definitely light out. He cursed inwardly, wondering when he'd fallen asleep, and how long he'd been out. At least a few hours, that was clear.

He struggled upwards, and next to him, beneath him, Natasha stirred. Flinching, he tried to avoid her eyes, and it worked until delicate fingers stroked his hair away from his forehead. He glanced over. Her eyes were open and clear, no sign of sleep left in her face, and she gave him a faint smile.

He swallowed. “I'm sorry,” he managed, and her smile faded.

Her shoulders rose, a faint shrug, almost invisible. “Why?” she said, her fingers coming up to smooth her hair back into place. Her eyelashes were held low over her eyes, her nose pink, tiny echoes of her tears, and he wondered when she'd stopped crying because he could still make out the tracks they'd taken over her cheeks. But her voice was soft and controlled, husky from sleep, but it didn't wobble or crack.

The way it felt like his would.

“Thank you for checking on me last night,” Steve said, moving away, and it was awkward, his face was burning, but he made it to the edge of the bed without falling over or accidentally grabbing at some part of her anatomy. “But I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-” He cleared his throat. “I didn't mean to, you know, and then, to fall asleep on you that way-” He squeezed his eyes shut. “That wasn't something you should have to deal with.”

He felt, more than saw, her move to the edge of the bed to sit next to him. She did it with grace and ease, and her hand came down, light and delicate, to cover his where it rested on the tumbled blankets. “You needed it. And you wouldn't have accepted it from anyone else,” she said.

Steve's jaw locked. “That's kind of worse, don't you think?” He jerked his head towards her, and away. “It's not your responsibility. It's not your problem, and just because you're the only woman on the team, it's worse, that-” He sucked in a breath. “I'm sorry.”

There was a moment of pause. “I'm not.” She stood. “I'm not yet so much a monster that I would deny a friend the smallest amount of human compassion."

He was already shaking his head, horrified. “Natasha-”

Natasha stood above him, her chin up, but her eyes meeting his. “When we were leaving the helicarrier,” she said, her voice soft, “going after Loki. And Clint volunteered to fly us, you looked at me.” She kept her eyes on his, and they were brilliant and sharp and proud. “You looked to me, and I nodded, and you accepted that.” She shifted her weight, and her hands flicked into fists at her side, just an instant, her control slipping for a bare moment, and then she had herself in hand again. “A man who had been trying to kill us an hour earlier, and you trusted my word, that he could be trusted. You didn't ask for explanations. You didn't demand proof or lay conditions. You took my word on that. And in the time we've known each other, Cap?” She glanced back, her face expressionless.

“That treatment has been the rule. Not the exception. You have no idea how rare that is. How much I treasure that.” She smiled a little, her lips curling up, the gesture one of shy femininity, and then it was gone. “And in all this time, this is the first thing you've needed, that I could give you. Nothing more than a comforting touch and someone to grieve with you.”

Turning on her heel, she added, “I want you to know this, Rogers. I will fight for you, I will follow your orders, I will march into hell at your back, and if I could take your pain from you right now, I would do it, gladly. Because you have always done your best for me, and nothing that happened last night will change that. You will not suddenly start treating me differently, treating me as if I'm less, or weak, or useless, because I allowed you to see that I am still human.” 

“We all are,” he said.

Natasha paused, glanced back over her shoulder. “Not everyone can see the asset and the person.”

“There's no difference,” Steve said.

“Not everyone believes that. But you do. And that's why I will do this every night, if you need me to.” She paused, her lips curling. “But you must promise me one thing.”

Steve nodded, serious. “Anything.”

“When we find him, you must never, ever tell Stark I shed so much as a tear for him,” she said. Her chin came up. “He will never let me live it down.”

Steve choked on a laugh. “Of course,” he said, trying to force his face back into solemn lines. “I don't know what you're talking about. You would never.”

“That's true, I wouldn't. Coulson, Clint, of course. And who wouldn't cry for Thor? And Bruce, he's one of my favorites. Then there's you, I forbid anything from happening to you, we would all go to pieces. Stark, however, he is a constant annoyance, and I would never miss him.” She grinned at him, and it was real and warm and steadily becoming more familiar. Like she allowed him behind the mask now; she hadn't discarded it, it was engrained, it was survival, but she put it aside from time to time now. She allowed them all to see some of what was happening inside of her. “I'm going to tell him you were inconsolable, just so you know.”

“Oh, I would never expect you to tell him anything but the truth,” Steve agreed.

She flicked her head towards the door. “Come on,” she said, her voice gently. “Let's get some breakfast.”

Steve took a breath. “Yeah. Natasha?”

“Yes?”

He wanted to ask, and when he opened his mouth, the words wouldn't come. He struggled for a moment, then let his mouth close. “Never mind, let's go.”

Her hand cupped his chin, turning him towards her. “He is alive,” she said, and it was with such conviction that he felt something horrible and foreign trapped in his chest loosen and fall away. “He is Tony Stark, and nothing so simple as a collapsing building or Hydra could possibly kill him.

“The Eastern Seaboard could collapse into the Atlantic ocean, and I am convinced we would find that man floating on a piece of the Statue of Liberty, and you know what he'd say to us when we went to collect him?”

Steve grinned at her. “Miss me?” he asked.

“Exactly right. Let's go, Cap.”

*

The room was big and empty, as pale as any other he'd been in since he'd woken up, the light giving the walls a pearlscant glow. The High Priest released his hand, stepping away, putting his back to Tony, and went low to the ground. From the voluminous folds of his robe, he pulled out a small cube, a twin to the one that Tony had discovered, sitting on the ground in Bartonia.

Tony stared down at it. “There's this guy,” he said, and his voice echoed through the room. “Dr. Strange. He and Thor, they discuss things sometimes, and he makes my head hurt, I don't DO magic. Let's just make that clear. Magic, me, no. Not interested. But he's a lot of fun when he's drunk, and if you hang out with Thor and don't know to cut the mead with something, anything, that isn't mead, you are going to end up drunk.

“He said, once, that if you're looking for magical objects in modern America? If you're trying to find ancient artifacts of mythical power? Your best bet is the flea market.

“Because certain things call to people. Even people who don't wield magic, who can't, who have no sense of magic. The power calls, it draws the blood, and people end up with things that seem useless and often broken. And they don't know why, but they can't throw it away, because even though it's a broken and busted useless piece of shit, the thing has WORTH. They just don't understand why, but they can't just toss it. 

“So these things end up at flea markets, an endless cycle of buying other people's junk and moving it around, the object seeking someone that can understand it, wield it. Because things of power have a will.” He stared down at the little mirrored Rubik's Cube. “A thousand square yards of stuff, and that called to me like nothing I've ever seen. And now I'm stuck with it, because there is no Mount Doom for me to pitch it into, there is no place I can bring it. To be free of it.”

Tony took a breath. “All it did was show you just where to find me. Isn't that right?”

The alien glanced up, met Tony's eyes, and flicked long, clever fingers over the cube, and the room lit up. Tony jerked, his shoulders going tense, his head coming around as the room filled, image after image flickering into existence.

They were all of him.

“Okay, this is creepy. Thank you. Creepy.” He turned, amazed, as the holograms took form. It was like watching himself from a distance, like an actor playing his role.

Tony welding, heavy gear weighing him down as he wielded the torch like a weapon. Tony arguing with Pepper, their body language loud even though there wasn't a sound to go with the image. Tony fixing Dummy's servos as Steve sat next to them, talking to the bot and distracting him with pencils and an eraser shaped like a boxy little robot. Dummy stealing the eraser and tucking it away when neither of the men were looking. Tony chugging coffee from a paper cup as he kept it out of Coulson's reach; Coulson tapping a pen on a nutritional report from SHIELD that desperately wanted to separate Tony from his vices. Tony dancing, grinning wide and bright, as he figured something out and cranked the music up to deafening levels. Tony bent over the counter, grease stained fingers at work as he repaired Calcifer's internal circuitry as Butterfingers held the objecting toaster still. Tony staring at a schematic, hands in his back pockets, chin up, shoulders back, eyes narrowed, his hair held back by a pair of goggles, a streak of black across one cheek. Tony sitting on the couch, working on one of the iron man gauntlets, Clint and Natasha next to him, the two of them a comfortable heap of limbs as they argued over what movie to watch.

Tony wandered through the images, staring at them, reaching out to touch a few, letting his fingers pass through the hologram. Stopped in front of the one where he'd fallen asleep at his bench, slumped forward, head pillowed on one arm. Steve was standing behind him, his expression fond and amused. As Tony watched, the recorded Steve reached out and scooped the sleeping Tony up. Cradling him close, Steve moved towards the door. There was an instant, unguarded and unseen, where Steve rested his cheek against Tony's hair, and his smile was filled with an emotion that Tony couldn't identify, but it turned his knees to water to see it.

He sucked in a breath, slow and careful, the sound uneven to his own ears. His hand was up, trying to touch Steve's cheek as the other man moved forward, carrying his burden without complaint, without difficulty. Tony's fingers ghosted through the image, and he wanted to scream.

He turned back to the High Priest, exhausted. “You've been watching me.” he said, his eyes playing over the images. “You've been watching ME.” He waved a hand at the images. “This is what you consider important? All my plans, all my work is there, you've paid no attention to my tech, you've only been watching me.”

The High Priest turned, and Tony followed his gaze, a breakdown of the human form in holographic detail. He watched as the form, his form, moved, bones and muscles appearing and disappearing, skin and hair and tendons and veins, an anatomical model with an arc reactor jammed into the center of it. The arc reactor was there, too, the pieces assemble and disassembled, long columns of writing he couldn't decipher floating in the air beside it as it was rotated, free form and enlarged, the structure outlined and the core's elemental structure a separate image.

And beside that, the Iron Man armor.

Tony watched as the hologram was disassembled, pulling apart the circuitry and the joints and the relays, the plating and the structure and he wanted to read their notes so badly, because they were doing something, they were making adjustments, and his eyes narrowed on it, watching. Trying to understand as different materials and pieces were added and removed, reinforcing the chest and the weak areas where the plating met and overlapped, where he was vulnerable, where the relays and the electrical system was closest to the surface, where the arc reactor came into contact with the suit.

Because they were trying to understand.

He looked at the High Priest. “You were watching me. And-” Tony paused, eyes going wide. “And I suddenly disappeared. That's it. That's why-” His head jerked up. “Since I picked that thing up, I've been in the workshop almost every day. I took that two day business trip to Algiers, and there was that mission outside of San Francisco, but I was back in a day or so. 

“For the last few months, I've been in the workshop. Then I had to prep for the conference, and then I went to the conference, then I got my ass kidnapped. I've been gone for...” He did the calculation in his head. “More than a week now. I disappeared, and you came looking for me.” His hand came up, covering the arc reactor. “You came looking for this.”

This. The rarest piece of tech on the planet. How many were there, a half dozen? The miniaturized ones, even less. There was the one in his chest, and there were the ones in his suits. His and Rhodey's. If they understood it, if they could track it... He looked up, meeting the High Priest's eyes. “This.” He tapped on it, and pushed his shirt up to reveal the glowing circle of light.

The High Priest reached out and tapped a long finger against the front.

Tony took a deep breath. “I don't get this,” he said. “I really wish I could speak your language. Or that you could speak mine. Why do you want me? Why, out of everything I've made, why Calcifer? Why a fucking toaster?” He pushed his hand through his hair. “The arc reactor, the repulsors, the armor. You got a good view of those, you seem to understand those, but you don't-”

He paused. “That's it. You understand those. You don't understand Calcifer. You don't get him.” Tony looked over at a nearby hologram. The holographic Tony was holding Calcifer up by his plug, utterly unconcerned by the fact that the toaster was flailing around like a fish on a hook. Behind him, Thor was all but wringing his hands together, clearly concerned for his little metal buddy. Holographic Tony was talking to him, an amused smile on his face as Dummy poked Calcifer with a long screwdriver. “You don't get us.”

He shook his head. “Hi,” he said to the High Priest. “I'm Tony Stark.” He held out his right hand. The alien blinked at it. Tony reached out with his left hand, because these people seemed pretty okay with touching him, so maybe this wouldn't get him killed. He caught the alien's hand and brought it to his, clasping their fingers together and giving it a shake. “Tony,” he repeated, touching his chest in true Tarzan style. “Tony.” He pointed at the alien, who was smiling.

“Oooo-neeeee,” the alien said, and Tony blinked. Grinned.

“Tch,” he said, clicking his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “Tony.”

“Ony.”

“Close enough.” Tony grinned. “Tony Stark.”

“Ony-sar.”

“We have a problem with the percussive sounds. Okay. Ony, I can live with that, I've been called worse.” Tony pointed at the High Priest. Blinking, the alien rattled off a long string of sounds, most of which Tony wasn't sure he could produce. “Oooookay,” he said, latching onto a sound at the beginning he could produce. “Uh, Chi?”

Another blink. 

Tony tried again, pointing. “Chi? Chief?”

A bubbling noise, and the alien fluttered his fingers around Tony's head. “Chi!” It sounded like agreement. He pointed to Tony's chest. “Ony.” To his own chest. “Chi.”

Tony nodded, and mirrored the gesture, the sounds. “Okay. So, there's that.” He grinned. 

Turned back towards the door. “Come on, Chief. If you want a self-aware toaster, I'm going to need my armor back.” He threw his hands in the air. “I will go down in universal history as that guy who made kitchen appliances sentient! You with me?”

The alien glided along with him without objection.

“Fuck, yeah!” Tony told him.

“Fu-ya!” Chief agreed.

“This is going to go so poorly,” Tony said.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And yes. This was referenced/set-up in "Ordinary Workplace Hazards." Feel free to check. 8)
> 
> Yes, Tony plays with an unknown object while speaking to Clint. And later, he does in fact break his primary rule as stated to Reed Richards and he brings it home.
> 
> Yes, this whole plotline was already in place when that was written.
> 
> Yes, FOUR commentators noticed and pointed out what Tony took from Bartonia. You four win the internet.
> 
> Yes, there are other plot points about this verse buried in the previous two fics, and this one.
> 
> Yes, the plan was always space aliens and sentient toasters.
> 
> No, I don't know why you're still reading this. 8)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, as always. There was just too much at the end of this. There will be another chapter. It will be a coda. It will be up in the next 2 days.

They didn't seem to have any problems at all giving him access to the armor.

Maybe, Tony theorized, because it was in such rough shape. Maybe because they didn't understand that the weapons systems could be easily fixed. Maybe because he was so far from home and so isolated that it would've been suicide to attempt to use the damn thing.

Probably that last choice. As much as he hated to admit it.

Tony bent over the circuitry, trying to eek a little more from the circuitry that had been shot long before he'd dumped the armor. He wasn't expecting much, but he needed to try. After all, as soon as he stopped trying, he felt like he was just going to lie down and die.

No fucking way was he going down without a fight.

And it was a fight. Everything was a fight. He was learning everything from scratch, a feeling of frustrated ignorance he hadn't experienced since he was in single digits. Everything was unfamiliar, everything was, for the lack of a better word, alien. Tools, writing, numbering systems, language, everything was a struggle, and Tony frustrated was not a Tony that did good work.

He cursed, tossing the tool in his hand to the bench. “Fuck this,” he muttered. “Let's fire this puppy up and see what happens.”

Around the lab, aliens straightened, moved, twisting on stools and standing as Tony shoved his shirt up, making the connections between the arc reactor and the central processing system of the suit with whatever he had available. He gritted his teeth, hoping, praying, and was relieved when the system started up with only a few second's delay.

“Come on, come on,” Tony said, slipping the remaining gauntlet on and reaching for the helmet. Wires and Frankenstein-esque bits trailing behind him, he checked as the computer came on line. It wasn't much, a basic control system and a stripped down HUD for when he couldn't make contact with Jarvis. For an instant, he'd hoped that Jarvis' voice would reach him, where ever he was, but there was only silence and the faint hum of the armor.

He was sick of silence. He was sick of words he didn't understand. “Let's see if we still have this,” Tony mumbled, and ran through the system, looking for his own little indulgence, the foolishness he did, but what the hell, it had only taken up a few gigs of storage space.

A second later, “Back in Black” thundered over the suit's external speakers, and Tony thrust a fist in the air. “Fuck, yeah,” he said, swinging his hands out in a boxing stance. “One step at a time. You want me working, you give me a lab. You give me my lab.”

A handful of the aliens had their hands over their ears, but most were just confused, blinking. Tony swung around, sweeping tools out of his way as he grabbed the pen and started scribbling calculations on the pages that were there. An alien stepped close, peering over his shoulder. “You want a toaster, I need to make you an AI,” Tony explained, shouting over the force of the music. Bopping his head, swinging his hips, moving because moving felt good, felt free. “If you want an AI, I need to start programming, and you know what the problem with that is? I don't have a fucking computer. I'm sure you've got something I can use, but really, what am I supposed to do here? I need something, anything, I need-”

He laid down a layer of schematics, and the alien straightened up, calling out, and two others came over, their robes fluttering in their wake. They began to discuss what he was doing, and suddenly, someone was calling up the hologram of their breakdown of the Iron Man armor. Tony jerked backwards, just a little, but they reached past him, reached around him, touching lines of information, pulling apart the holographic representation.

A few others crowded close, and Tony glanced around as the animated faces leaned close.

A touch on his shoulder brought his head around. The alien there seemed familiar. Tony frowned at him, and the alien held out a coffee cup. Tony took it. “You were one of the ones who pulled me out of my room, right?” he asked, hooking a hip onto the edge of a stool, leaning back against it, flipping the pen between his fingers as the aliens tried to figure out the connection between the armor and the toaster. “Guard two.” The coffee was hot and brewed perfectly. Tony frowned. “Listen, I know it's an overwhelming joke to say that Starbucks has a location everywhere these days, but I sincerely doubt they've made it out here. How're you-”

The guard stepped to the side, and an alien stepped forward holding a brown paper bag. He set it on the workbench, and Tony stared at it. He reached out, his fingers shaking, and pulled the menu that had been stapled to the front free. “Chang's Chinese,” he said, and he heard his voice as if from far away. “This is... This is the Chinese joint we order from all the time because Bruce likes the scallion pancakes and Thor-” 

He stared at the menu, marked with scribbles of numbers and lines of Chinese characters, and a smear of grease above the staples where a hand had pinched the bag shut. “You are fucking kidding me,” Tony said, blinking at it. “You're making trips to Earth to... Get me food. And coffee.”

Tony swung around to face the alien who'd given him the bag. “You're going to earth to get me FOOD. You're going-” He held up the menu, pointed to the address on the front. “You're going here. You're going here, why, why this Chinese joint, you could-” He squeezed his eyes shut, thinking, trying to think, and he fumble for the coffee cup, because coffee always helped. He froze, lips on the lid. He held it up in front of him, looking at the familiar notations.

“You've seen this before,” he said, his voice blank. “If you've been watching me. You've seen THIS cup. THIS menu. You don't know what they mean, or what they are, you're just matching the items. You've been to New York. You've been to the-” He got dizzy. “You've been to the tower. You-”

He paused. “Wait, is that why- Okay, the shirt and the pants, I wear those in the workshop, you've seen those, but I don't think I've stripped down there since the Avengers moved in, so you have no idea about my underwear, WHO THE HELL WAS IN MY WORKSHOP IN RED SATIN SHORTS?”

The aliens were milling around, hands fluttering and eyes blinking, and Tony wasn't surprised when Chief reappeared, slipping through the crowd without difficulty. 

Tony thrust the menu at him. “You're going home. You're going to my home. Send me home. Now.”

The alien considered him, but did nothing. Tony sucked in a breath, and another, reaching out and disabling the music. When he turned back, Chief was holding a toaster, his expression rather melencholy. He made a sound, soft and pained, and pushed it towards Tony. 

“I can't, not without-” Tony shoved a hand through his hair. “I need-” He pointed at the hologram, and wished he knew how to change it. “More.” He made a pushing gesture with his hand, and Chief blinked. With an exaggerated nod, he changed the recording, and Tony nodded. Chief cycled through the images until he came up with a broad shot of the lab, and Tony grabbed his arm. “Stop! That.”

He turned back, fumbling on the bench, finding paper, finding a pen. He mimed writing something, then folded the page. Turning, he pushed it at the hologram, pushed it through the hologram. “Home,” he said. He held up the letter. “Home.” He pointed at the image. “Take this, send it home.” He repeated the gesture.

Chief's eyes narrowed. Looked at the folded page. Looked at the image of the workshop. Looked at the alien who'd brought the food. And nodded.

*

“How're your hands?”

Steve glanced up from his most recent plate of SHIELD rations. It was nothing to write home about, but it was a damn sight better than most of what he'd eaten in the field during the war. “Fine. Why?” he asked Clint, chewing his way through his sandwich by rote.

Clint set his tray down and tipped his head to the side. “Huh. So they are.” He picked up his cup of coffee. “So're mine, in case you were curious.”

“Okay,” Steve said, frowning. “Any particular reason you're bringing this up?”

“Yeah.” Clint took a drink from his coffee cup. “Turns out for the first time since he woke up, Justin Hammer was suddenly eager to talk about the situation.”

“Huh,” Steve said, arching his eyebrows. “He have anything to say?”

Clint shrugged. “Guess they're in with him now.” He propped his feet on the empty chair next to him. The Hydra compound had ended up being of more use than they'd thought. SHIELD was used to building everything they needed if they were going to be on site for more than a few days, but they were practical. If it was already built, they'd use it.

Besides, as AD Hill was fond of reminding them, the budget took a hit every time the Avengers decided to do just about anything.

“So why do you-”

“I got written up,” Clint said, looking out the window at the setting sun. “Just so you know.”

Steve paused, his fingers tightening on the crusts of his sandwich. It tasted like cardboard, but he'd long since learned to eat what was put in front of him. Taste and personal preference didn't matter, he ate because it was edible, and that was all it had to be. “What? Why?”

“Coulson seems to think someone rattled Hammer's cage last night. Natasha was down on guard duty, so she's off the hook. That pretty much means me.” He saluted Steve with his cup.

“Really.” Steve put his sandwich down. “Clint, I-”

“He caught me coming out of Hammer's room,” Clint explained. “You know how these things go, caught at the scene of the crime. Really not in question.” He picked up his sandwich. “Totally what I had planned, but the guy was a babbling mess when I walked in. Weird. I think he's just a mess, and we didn't notice a few little panicky elements since, you know, no one gives a damn. But Coulson seems to think someone worked him over. So I got written up.”

“Clint, I'm-”

Clint held up a hand. “No skin off my teeth. Or,” he said, holding up the hand that was cradling his sandwich, “my knuckles. Unlike some, I don't have an expedited healing factor.” He took a bite, and another, chewing fast. “You know what I think? I think that people who heal fast? Sometimes they aren't as careful as they ought to be. Because usually they don't have to be careful.”

Steve stared down at his plate, his stomach churning. “Clint-”

Clint gave him a look. “Shut. UP.” He snagged the spoon from his coffee and stabbed it at Steve. “Dumbass idiots with healing abilities need to be more fucking careful. Dumbass idiots with healing factors need to leave the dirty work to people who are already dirty because dumbass idiots with healing factors are fucking lousy at making sure they have a fucking cover story.”

Steve gaped at him. “Clint-”

Clint came up out of his seat so fast that Steve didn't even have to react. Clint slapped him upside the head. “Dumbass.” He dropped back into his seat and went back to his sandwich.

Steve rubbed hard at the side of his head, not sure what had just happened. “Ow,” he said at last.

Clint chewed his sandwich, not a care in the world. 

A tray was dropped next to him, and Steve looked over to find Natasha glaring down at him along the length of her nose. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Slapped Steve on the side of the head. “Dumbass,” she said, and lowered herself into the seat with the ease, the regal grace of a princess.

Steve shook his head. “Are you both done?” he asked.

“Yep.” Clint saluted him with his cup. “By the way, there is no way Coulson believed it, but it's plausible, so he'll keep the notes on my file and off of someone else's, because I am already known as a frickin' psychopath and the psych department wants nothing more to do with me.”

Steve stared down at his plate. “He didn't know anything,” he said, his shoulders hunching. “He didn't know-”

“Yeah, that looks to be what Coulson's finding out, too,” Natasha said, taking a delicate bite of her sandwich. “Guy's a moron. Wrong place at the wrong time messing with the wrong guy, and Stark dropped him like a bag of dirt. Woke up in custody. He's useless.” She flicked aside a piece of lettuce. “It was a good attempt, though. Clint, could you please get off your ass and get the job done faster next time?”

“I love how you think ducking Coulson is child's play,” Clint grumbled into his coffee cup. “He knew exactly what we had planned, and he has been watching me like a hawk.”

“And I gave you the perfect opening with the alarm,” she said, giving him a sideways look. It was packed with disdain and a healthy dose of disapproval.

“He knows you as much as he knows me, he wasn't fooled.”

“So maybe,” Steve said, glancing from one to the other, “next time, the dumbass should be included in your plans, because no one suspects the dumbass.”

Clint looked at him. Looked at Natasha. Natasha gave him that little half head tip, half shrug that meant 'yeah, probably.' Clint looked back at Steve. “Yeah. Okay.”

Steve looked back at his coffee cup. There was a beat of nothing and then a hand glanced off the back of his head. “Dumbass,” Coulson told him.

“Hey, that'-” Clint grinned as he got the same. “That's better. Jesus. Starting to think you didn't like me any more.”

Coulson flicked his eyes towards the ceiling. “We've got news from headquarters. There's a situation in New York. Right now, it's being handled. That might change if it continues.”

*

Aliens were screaming all around him as Tony shot through the hallways.

Okay, so flying without the suit was simultaneously the best thing he'd ever done, and the stupidest, his brain giving him a slide show of his attempts to harness the repulsors, the first time. Alone. In his garage workshop, with just the bots standing watch, and still he managed to brain himself on the roof.

Not his finest hour.

Of course, this might beat it. He barely made it around a corner, arching his body to avoid an alien that was standing just out of his line of sight, ignoring the scream and the crash of something dropping because he could not think about that right now. He couldn't think of anything other than the force of his forward momentum, the speed that he was coaxing from the repulsor powered boots with no stabilization, no hand controls, just the boots and his whole body a live wire in flight.

He was probably going to die.

Tony shifted his legs, twisting the angle of his flight, and flexed his ankles, pushing himself a little faster, a little harder, and he could see, out of the corner of his eye, the aliens in swift pursuit, appearing and disappearing, jumping through space, keeping pace with him but never quite catching up, he moved too fast, too erratically, he made turns that he should not have been able to make, pushing the boots beyond their capabilities without even thinking about it.

Fingers made a grab for his ankle, and didn't manage to make more than the barest contact, Tony slipping fast out of the grip before the hand could close over his leg. Laughing like a howler monkey, he pushed himself forward, a little faster, and it was dangerous, far too dangerous, but he could do this. He could control it.

He could outrun them.

A straight out hallway, the occupants ducking and flinging themselves into the walls and he came so close to one small figure that its robe flickered against the skin of his bare arms, against his face. He wasn't wearing the helmet, there was no HUD, no AI backup, just his own reaction time and the boots, the boots that fed off the minute shifts of his legs and hips. No repulsors on his hands, just the twist of his wrists, the way his arms, held to the side, could act as fins, and the aliens were right behind him.

He took the next corner at full speed and it was too much, too fast, he clipped the wall and spiraled out of control, legs flailing as he tried to get the flight path back under control. Cursing, he saw the wall coming up way too fast, way too hard and he tried to swing his legs up to slow himself down, but there was no way he was going to miss this.

Arms closed around him from behind and the wall disappeared.

They reappeared back in the lab, and the forward momentum was still carrying them along, they crashed into a bench, and everything went down in a cacophony of breaking equipment and shattering crystal. Another set of arms closed on them, and Tony squeezed his eyes shut. He hated the sensation of appearing and disappearing, the jumps through space that the aliens accomplished do easily, but he couldn't get his bearings, and it was seriously freaking him out.

They hit, bounced, rolled, and for an instant, there was stillness. “Everyone alive?” Tony asked, from within a pile of alien limbs.

A face peered into his, and Tony raised his eyebrows. “Nice catch, buddy,” he said, and everyone was staggering up, away, blue faces flushed green, broad lobed ears standing straight out from their heads in an instinctive reaction of shock and fear and high adrenaline. The aliens were hugging each other and touching Tony's head and shoulders, and one who'd become his constant companion was hugging Tony like a limpet as they dragged him to his feet.

“Okay, test six on the boots was-” Tony wobbled and hands supported him. “That was good. Somewhat. We've done better. And worse. Oh, God, we've done worse.” He shook his head, trying to get his vision to clear. “That was interesting. Let's try that again, I think I'm getting the hang of it-”

He tipped his weight forward, going on his tiptoes, and every alien hand was clamped down on his arms and shoulders and shirt and head, holding him down. “That's a no. Okay, okay, I get it, no. No more boot tests right now, jeez.” He didn't bother struggling as he was lifted onto the nearest stool and the boots were removed, passed hand over hand to a small clutch of aliens who started arguing over them immediately.

Taking a deep breath, he leaned back against the bench, surveying his small empire. It was starting to look familiar.

Some of the lab techs were crouched down, picking up the disastrous remains of their lab reentry, chattering with each other. Tony turned and nearly ran face first into his guard. “Oh, come on, Bud!” he said, making the alien's ears flare out. Tony had begun to recognize the body language, the hand gestures and movements of feet and fingers and eyes to help read them. “It was fine, I'm fine, see?” He held his arms out to the side and let the alien run fluttering, nervous hands over him. “Fine.”

Fine because the damn guard had fast hands and exceptional aim. Tony was still trying to figure out their ability to teleport, he hadn't determined if it was tech based or if they had a natural ability. Not all of them did it, and some of them did it far better than others. His guard, the one alien who stayed with him when ever he wasn't in his room, was by far the best he'd seen.

The guy could move in the flicker of an eye, light and assured.

“Fine, no more flying today. I think I proved my point. We can do this, we just need to up the muscle controls.” Tony waited for the inspection to end, and then gave the big guy a grin. “I need-” He turned away, and headed back to his bench, one of the few that had been missed by some miracle when they'd come plowing back into the lab.

He smacked his hand against the armor as he passed, barely glancing at the latest patch job. It was slow work, cripplingly slow. They were light years ahead of humanity in terms of tech, but what they had, what Tony was making small, childlike attempts at understanding, was not compatible with the armor. The circuits just couldn't be integrated, so it was like starting from scratch.

The arm they were installing to replace the missing one was closer to the armor of a medival knight than a fit for his high tech battle suit. Two aliens were bent over it, one perched like a bird on his toes on the workbench, knees tucked up tight against his chest as he attempted to fuse a crystal based relay to the lightweight gold polymer. The other was sitting cross-legged on the ground, eyes slitted naturally to protect him from the light of a flared welding torch.

Tony checked the progress on the gauntlet, the five fingered layout had given his alien assistants trouble. He'd spent hours one day with his hand being flexed and poked and stretched and measured. Luckily, he'd been able to write with his other one while they were doing it.

He'd laid claim to the room by just filling the walls with calculations, scribbles, sketches, diagrams. Old school, truly old school, but their holographic systems couldn't be adjusted to a language or numbering system that he could understand. Not yet.

He snagged a pen from the bench and started writing, fast and hard, his hands flicking over the wall as he ran the calculations for adjusted power output from the boots. “Look, if we're going to succeed at producing a propulsion system that can be worn and not, I don't know, kill the user, than the controls have to be narrowed, it's got to be tied to the impulse of the user in a way that does not involve shoving a wire into their cerebral cortex, because, really, our kind don't much appreciate that.”

His arm swung up, sketching fast, laying strings of numbers and letters behind, circuits outlined in word and deed, and he stabbed the wall with the pen. “This. This is-” He paused, considering. “Cannot depend on the arms, not if this is going to- Can't wield a weapon if you're using your hands for stabilization, they won't use it if there's not another way, he needs both hands for the bow, and she won't, not unless she has her hands free, both hands-”

A delicate touch on his shoulder, and he glanced back. “Lunch?” he asked, arching his eyebrows. The guard handed him a packet of wrapped chopsticks, and Tony took them, tucking the pen behind his ear. “Gotcha.”

The familiar form was waiting beside the bench, holding a brown paper bag. There was a Chinese restaurant menu stapled to the outside. “I am going to need to buy this restaurant by the time I get home. I need you to stop stealing food,” he said, and it was a token protest, he knew it. They didn't understand, and they wouldn't let him touch the food they ate. He had to trust them in that, that whatever they were consuming, it wouldn't work for his system.

The alien tipped its head to the side, considering Tony with a faint smile. The particular trim on its robe, a thin band of silver and blue marked it as what Tony had begun to label the courier class. The ones who brought him things, who took things from him, always had that mark on their robe. The alien took a seat, accepting a cup of steaming water and a plate of flattened round discs. The Courier chose one with care, and broke it in half, dropping it into the water. 

The smell was familiar by now, sweet and spicy, as the water was stained orange.

Tony, for his part, ripped open the bag of Chinese food, pulling out containers. “Lo mein and, oh, excellent, kung pow chicken,” he said, checking the boxes. There was a container of egg drop soup as well, which was a first. Several of the aliens crouched down, studying the foggy liquid through the plastic container. Tony opened the lid, letting them smell and poke at it. He snagged an egg roll and jammed it between his teeth, reaching for a piece of paper from the stack. Ignoring the grease on his fingers, from the machines and the egg roll in equal parts, he pulled the pen from behind his ear and started to scribble out today's message. 

_Still fine. Working on repulsor powered boots for Clint. Shut up, Barton, you'll wear them. You are a dick, you so will wear them. Because you pretend, but you like being a madman. Am being treated well, please pay Chang's Chinese for the fact that aliens are stealing their food. I cannot imagine how they could be paying for this, and I'm getting kind of sick of rice, but I like not starving to death. I am fine, safe, treated well. I will get home. Don't sell my stuff._

He paused. Chewed. His pen hovering over the page, he sighed. Added in:

_I miss you all. I'll be home soon._

Folding the page, he held it out, and a waiting alien pressed an adhesive of some sort to the edge. Tony nodded his thanks and held it out to the Courier. The alien finished his tea, and slipped the water swollen fruit into his mouth. Chewing, it accepted Tony's letter. “Home,” the courier said, the word drawn out, a struggle that Tony appreciated.

“Home,” Tony repeated, and spread his hands, palms up, fingers flexed, in front of his chest. The gesture seemed to translate to 'thank you,' in the lexicon of their body language, and they appreciated it every time he used it. The Courier smiled, nodding slow and careful, and disappeared, carrying Tony's letter.

Hopefully back to the Avengers tower. Please, God. Let them be taking the letters to the tower.

A light touch at his elbow brought his head around. He grinned at the new arrival. “Afternoon shift already?” he asked the alien. This one was small, almost a head shorter than any of the others, and Tony didn't know if it was because it was a different gender, a different age, or just smaller than average when compared to the others. But this little one had appeared every afternoon, presenting him with things. It had taken him forever to figure out what it was trying to communicate.

Of course, it had taken him forever to figure out their base eight numbering system, too, so what the hell.

Now, as he reached for his chopsticks with one hand, he made a 'give it to me' gesture with the other. The small alien held up an arrow. “Nice,” Tony said. He picked it out of the alien's hand, testing the weight and heft of it. The arrow had a sharp, glittering point, and the shaft was light and flexible. He ran his fingers down the length, frowning at the feel of the material. It was a polymer that he'd come to recognize. He balanced it on the tip of one finger, letting the arrow find its balance. “Good, but-”

The alien was slipping a glove over its hand, with tips that covered its fingers and thumb and thin slats that ran down the back of its hand. Tony handed the arrow back, and the alien flicked the gloved fingers against the shaft.

The tip flexed and reformed.

“Holy shit,” Tony breathed out. He reached out and pressed on the side of the arrowhead, avoiding the sharp edges. It was solid and resisted the pressure. “Holy, holy shit. Memory polymer.” He lifted his fingers away, and the alien's fingers moved again, rattling a pattern against the shaft, and the arrowhead shifted again. Tony grabbed a box of Chinese and started shoveling it into his mouth as he watched the arrow shift. He nodded, his mouth full. The alien gave him a pleased look. “Good job,” Tony said, swallowing, his brain going through the possibilities. If Hawkeye could adjust his arrows to his needs without having to fuss with his quiver controls, it would speed him up exponentially.

Memory polymer like this could come in very useful elsewhere...

He turned back to the two helping with his suit. “Hey,” he said, gathering everyone's attention. He held up the arrow. “How much of this stuff you got?”

*

“We should not do this thing,” Thor gritted out.

“We have to,” Bruce told him. His face was shuttered, flat, but his eyes were sad as he bent over the briefing report, the tablet clutched in tight hands as Clint brought the Quinjet up and around. He sucked in a long breath. “We have to.”

Steve stared out the window as the jungle faded from sight. “Bring us up to date, Coulson.”

“We should not-” Thor thundered, and Steve turned on him.

“We have nothing,” he snarled out. “Not a hint, not a lead, nothing. We have blood on a wall, and a smear of it on a cell phone and no trace of him for two weeks. If we had anything, we could make the case that we should stay. But we're sifting through rubble and tracking down phantoms and we have nothing. He simply disappeared.” 

Steve sucked in a breath. “So we're leaving that to SHEILD, who will do the job, who are better trained and better equipped to do it, and we're going back to New York, because when we do find Tony, I am not explaining to him why we let his city burn to the ground while we were doing soil tests.”

Everyone was silent, and Steve sucked in a breath. “We're going home. And as soon as this is cleaned up, as soon as everything is put right again, we're coming right back out.” He stared at Thor, who nodded, his face miserable. “We're not leaving him. We're not forgetting him. But New York needs us.”

“New York needs us often,” Clint called from the front seat. “New York needs to get its act together.”

“I'll be sure to mention that,” Coulson said, and he sounded tired. 

“What've we got?” Natasha asked, and her hand ghosted over Thor's shoulder, rubbing lightly. He leaned into the contact, misery on his face.

“Escalating conflict,” Coulson said, flicking through the images on his tablet. “Appears to be a series of portals appearing and disappearing around the city. First one appeared ten days ago, the Fantastic Four handed the situation quickly. Invaders appear to be mechanical in nature, in a large array of sizes and designs, best described as 'bigass mechanical bugs.'”

“Oh, let me guess, we're letting Johnny describe things now,” Clint said, chuckling.

“Possibly.” Coulson glanced up at them. “A couple of days passed with no other contact, SHIELD assumed the situation was under control. When the portal reopened, it was startling, but not really a cause for concern. Since then, the appearance has been rapidly accelerating. Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and the X-Men have been on the move, and in the past two days, SHIELD has been on the streets. Richards is working out an algorithm to track their source, and thinks it can be put into affect, but they need boots on the ground to patch the holes as they appear.”

Bruce studied the pictures. “These things look to be bad news.”

“The fact that there are so many types and designs makes it hard to design effective countermeasures.” Coulson tapped on the tablet. “The most common designs are here, please take a look.”

Steve glanced up, meeting Bruce's eyes with a faint smile. “Once more into the breech?” he asked.

“As many times as needed,” Bruce said, managing to return it. “It's what Tony would want us to do.”

“Bastard needs to get his ass back here and do his job,” Clint said. “I'm sick of picking up his slack.”

“Amen,” Steve said, ducking his head over his tablet.

*

Tony had realized something had changed when Beyonce's “Better Put a Ring on It” suddenly started playing in the lab. That, after all, was NOT on any playlist he'd ever made.

However, who ever was in charge of first figuring out, then decrypting human radio transmissions had latched onto dance and club music with a fervor that Tony considered unhealthy. He had retaliated by teaching his lap assistants how to dance. Really, if you were stuck in an alien lab with a never ending flow of Chinese food and Starbucks, teaching an alien race the booty-shaking “Single Ladies” dance probably counted as a normal thing to do.

Probably. Not that Tony cared what counted as normal. 

But the music had changed after that. Rapidly. A lot. Tony took it as a positive sign, because there had been no audio on any of the recorded holograms that he'd seen. Now, whatever else was happening, they were listening. And there were the occasional commercial, in French or Spanish or Russian, but the music flowed over the lab, over the corridors, everywhere Tony went, aliens were bopping along to the sounds, and that could not be a bad thing.

Whistling under his breath, he attached the new case to the toaster's innards. “Excellent,” he said, leaning back, taking the pats on his back as his due. “And if someone does not turn off the Coldplay we're listening to right now, I'm going to start smashing things. I swear, I will take a crowbar to this place. First I will make a crowbar, then I will take it to this lab.”

A hand came down on his shoulder, and he glanced back. “Buddy!” he said, grinning at his guard, who didn't smile back. “What? What's-” The alien tugged him to his feet, and waited for Tony to toss his tool to the workbench and nod. He took Tony by the shoulders, and the two of them disappeared.

“I hate teleporting, I just want everyone here to know-” Tony's words died in his throat. “Oh. Oh, fuck.”

Chief was standing in front of the altar, the first place Tony had seen him, and this time, instead of the Iron Man armor, there was just an expansive hologram. Behind him, the room was full, aliens pushing their way in, packed like sardines on the floor behind them, all of them staring, with Tony, at the scene.

Like something out of an action movie. Except for the fact that it was Steve running through the streets of New York, Thor swooping in low above him, and there was something horrible and mechanical and deadly chasing them. As Tony watched, horrified, Natasha took a shot, and nearly lost her head.

“Oh, God,” he whispered, his heart in his throat.

An arrow passed by, and he could hear the talking head, whatever network was broadcasting this, this shaky, off-center footage, from a cell phone or a bad camera held ten stories above the street, and there was screaming as Steve slammed his shield into the nearest robot. The pieces hit him anyway, knocking him off his feet, and Tony lost it.

Tony stabbed a finger at the hologram. “I need to go home. Do you understand?” He moved forward, wanting to scream, wanting to cry, not doing either, because it wouldn't do any good. “I need to go home! These are my friends, this is my family, my people, and they're going to die! They need me!” He pointed, he spread his hands, begging with everything he had. “Let me go home.”

Chief looked at him, blinking, and there was the shuffle of feet from the room at large. Tony stared at him, sucked in a deep breath. “Please.” He reached out, his fingers ghosting through the image. “I need to go home.”

The alien looked at him, then at the hologram. “Home,” he repeated. Before Tony could do more than breathe a sigh of relief, he spun around, raising a hand and began shouting. The room exploded into movement, and Tony's hands were grabbed. He tugged against the grip, confused, but they were lifting him off his feet, and the disorientation that came with their teleporting left him dizzy. When his vision cleared, he was in the lab, and the place was going nuts, aliens scrambling in all directions, and all that mattered was the suit. Tony lunged forward and they met him halfway.

The aliens weren't quite as impersonal as the armor assembly bots, but Tony was so grateful for the help that he didn't object. 

He stared down at the right arm, flexing it. This wasn't good. It was good for a replacement, of course, it was sure as fuck better than going into a fight without anything covering his right side, but there was no strength to it, no repulsor. It provided a scant amount of protection, and the polymer, they'd have a chance to see if that stuff worked, but for the most part, he was going to be damn sure to keep his good side to the fight.

Not to mention the lack of a balancing repulsor would make flying straight a bitch.

The last of the pieces was in place, and he sealed the helmet in place, praying, hoping, and the HUD flickered into existence, an emergency backup for when there was no contact with Jarvis. It wasn't much, but this whole fucking thing was a wing and a prayer and he didn't care. He'd take what he could get and pray to God that that it worked.

He didn't have a choice.

Hands closed on him, and Tony gritted his teeth. When he opened his eyes again, he was back in the main hall, and he couldn't figure out what was happening for a second.

Tony had never seen these people holding weapons.

“You're coming with me?” he asked Chief, who was slipping into something that looked very much like armor. “Home?”

“Home,” the alien repeated. He raised a hand, and the room fell silent. He held out a hand, fingers curled in, palm down, and Tony reached out, his hand palm up, open. Chief dropped a small, flat disc, crystalline and thin, into his hand. He mimed holding a hand up and throwing something down. Tony repeated the gesture, holding tight to the item. Chief nodded, and blinked into existence next to Tony.

“I smash this,” Tony said, making the throwing movement again, “And you'll come.” He pointed at the alien, and moved his hands close. “Wow. I hope I got that right.” He looked at the room, trying to spot the tiny alien who was working on the arrows and the two that had been weaving body armor. He mimed a bow and arrow, and received a nod from Chief. The glove wasn't ready, but the arrows were fast and light and brutal. They'd come in handy no matter what.

He sucked in a breath. “Home.”

Chief gave him a faint smile. “Home,” he repeated in his sing-song voice, and two aliens in courier robes stepped up next to Tony, one on each side. Chief spoke to them, and everyone nodded. Tony flipped the visor down and squeezed his eyes shut, hoping they landed at the tower, at the workshop, anywhere, as long as he could tell what the hell was happening and where he was and hopefully not get between Clint and whatever the man was trying to shoot.

He must've done something right recently, because damned if his prayers weren't answered for once.

Tony landed and there was a moment of disorientation, but he was home, he was standing on the tower, on his usual landing pad, and he was running almost before his feet touched the ground. “JARVIS!”

“Sir!” Jarvis sounded startled, confused, and Tony had a moment of unholy glee, because yes. It was so rarely that he put one over on his AI, and that should be savored. “Sir, where-”

“No time, give me a full HUD, Jarvis, I'll explain when this is over!” He didn't wait, he didn't stop, he just launched himself off the tower, the repulsors kicking in an instant before the HUD flickered into view, and he wanted to laugh or cry or scream and he didn't do any of those. He just flipped his body around and pushed the suit, hard and fast, towards the chaos of the New York streets below. “The more things change,” he said, “the more they stay the same, huh, Jarvis?”

“As you say, sir. And might I add, I am so glad to hear your voice.”

“Right back at you, Jarvis!” He shot low and fast, cutting between two buildings, trying to find the proper speed and balance for flying one handed, and it was wobbly and fuck, he was not going to do this ever again, not if he had a choice, but today, he didn't have a choice. He could see the smoke rising from the streets even at this distance. “What've we got?”

“Attacks are sporadic and uncoordinated. The robotics involved and sophisticated, but relatively fragile. Only the larger specimens are posing much difficulty,” Jarvis said, and schematics and maps cycled in front of Tony's eyes, rotating and slipping into place in the HUD. “The X-Men are covering the boroughs, preventing the spread of the infestation, and the Fantastic Four are attempting to stop the portals that are allowing them access to the city. Dr. Richards believes they will be able to put things right, but until then, the damage must be mitigated.

“Civilian evacuation has been accomplished throughout the lower city, with emergency personnel moving the last of the population with SHIELD's assistance.”

“The Avengers?” Tony said, pushing through the city, fast and hard, picking off anything robotic that crossed his path. The insects exploded with a satisfying roar of fire and shattered metal. 

“Containing the threat in the financial district,” Jarvis said, and the map lit, four sharp lights. 

“Four?” Tony asked, his heart stuttering. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a flash of blue and red moving like a shot across his field of vision, and rolled hard to the left to slam a shoulder into the massive bug that was close on Spider-Man's heels. The thin man flicked him a wave and a shouted “Thanks for the assist!” as he dropped down, out of sight.

“The Hulk managed to destroy the largest of the creatures that have been spotted so far, but he was knocked unconscious during the struggle. Dr. Banner is currently in the hands of SHIELD medical. No major injuries, a full recovery is expected within the next thirty minutes.”

Tony released a shaky breath. “Good. Good, that's, good.” He killed the repulsors and dropped, hard, streaking towards the Avengers position. “Hook me into the comm system.”

“Sir, they believe you are dead,” Jarvis said, and Tony almost missed a corner, clipping the edge of a building and he had to struggle to stabilize his flight.

“What? What, why? I was only gone, it was like three weeks! It was three weeks, wasn't it? I wasn't held in a different time space continuum, was I? Jarvis, how long since I disappeared?”

“Nineteen days, but-”

“Nineteen days, and they've already written me off?” Tony asked, incredulous. “Jesus, what? NINETEEN days? I mean, the LAW won't allow me to be declared legally dead that fast, what the hell?”

“Sir-”

“Oh, never mind, I will make them eat those words,” Tony gritted out, and kicked himself past the edge of a skyscraper, so close that the windows burst as he sliced through the air. “Never be so quick to count me out, I swear to God I get no respect-”

He came down, and a familiar form in blue and red was a bright spot on the destroyed street below him, a huge beetle shaped robot pinning him down. Steve was fighting, but the thing was just too big, too heavy, and over the comm unit, Tony heard Clint howling for Thor to get his ass in gear.

Thor was too far away, Tony could see that just with a glance at his HUD, but that was okay, that was fine, because Tony was right there. 

And anything that was trying to kill Steve Rogers deserved to die at Tony's hands anyway.

*

Steve could hear someone screaming in his ear, probably Coulson or Thor at this point, and he shoved up with his shield as hard as he could. The weight of the metal insect bore down on him, and a pincer slammed into the pavement next to his face, so close that he was pretty sure he had a hole in his uniform. He gritted his teeth and tried to unseat the damn thing, but it was too big and too heavy.

Clint was yelling in his ear about angles and lines of sight and he couldn't pay attention because this thing was going to rip his throat out as soon as it got past the shield, and that was going to be soon. Far, far too soon. He set his feet and shoved hard.

The weight was lifted off of him with such suddenness that he actually found himself rolling like a pinball, his body bouncing across the pavement, and the spider went crashing into a brick wall fifty feet away.

And Iron Man skidded to a stop next to him, that characteristic fist down position that Tony had always adapted, his metal boots digging hard into the street, throwing up chunks of asphalt in all directions. There was an instant of aching silence, and then the helmeted head came up. “Miss me?” he asked, and the voice was familiar, even through the suit's speakers, and Steve was so dizzy he thought he was hallucinating.

Clint's voice came through the comm, a howl of rage. “You FUCKER. Where the fuck have you been, you goddamn-” An arrow flew by in a blur, picking off a small insect in dead dive at Iron Man's head, and the repulsored hand came up, burning another three of them to ash.

“Kidnapped by space aliens, didn't you get my letters?” Tony said, and his voice was tense, sharp, but he was moving fast, weapons up and every move familiar and right and Steve was clinging to the concrete, his head spinning and he was getting up, in a fog that didn't stop him from slamming his shield off three attackers in quick succession.

“That isn't funny, Stark,” Coulson snapped out, and Natasha was swearing in vicious Russian, hard and sharp and mean.

“Never said it was, I'm being-” His arm came up, and there was something wrong with it, now that Steve's eyes could focus on him, there was something different about that arm, like plates of armor, not as smooth or high tech as the rest of the suit, but as Iron Man swung, the arm grew spikes, a living mace of force and the bug went back in a shattered mass, throwing up sparks. “Completely serious.” He flicked out his hand, and there was something hitting the ground, something that shattered with a burst of light. “These guys.”

And time slowed down as a tall, alien form blinked into existence next to him. One minute, the street was empty, the next, occupied. Steve recoiled, blinking hard, but the alien was still there, unfolding its body, rising up to full height next to Iron Man, hovering there next to the red and gold armor. Then, behind him, another. Another and another and another, dozens at first then hundreds, the street filling up with tall, pale, blue-green creatures in armor and holding bows and guns and long, curved swords.

Iron Man paused. “I brought an army. Did, did no one else bring an army? Well, that's just awkward. It's so embarrassing when that happens.” He flicked a hand out. “Go.”

They went. They went, scattering in all directions, moving fast and hard and with weapons screaming around them as they disappeared mid-step. 

“Context would be good right now,” Coulson was saying.

“Aliens. Grabbed me. They've been watching me since Bartonia,” Iron Man said, his voice clipped, and he fell back as the aliens scattered, chittering and making high, bright noises. “Finally convinced them to let me come back. Do not shoot them.” An insect almost his size came in hard and fast and he nailed it in the head with a bright, fast burst of the repulsor. “Hawkeye, give me a tracer, they've got ammunition for you.”

“What-”

“Just trust me!” A single flare arched across the sky, and Iron Man pointed, miming drawing a bow, and two of the aliens nodded, disappearing. Through the comm, a strangled shriek was abruptly bit back.

“That is fucking disconcerting!” 

“You get used to it,” Iron Man said, picking off another two small bugs. He ducked as Steve threw his shield at a larger one. It bounced, ricocheted and Steve snagged it out of the air. 

“Really?” Natasha said.

“No, not really, it is very freaky, and it remains really, really freaky.”

“Man of Iron!” Thor thundered. “You have found great allies! Such warriors as I have never seen, but how-”

“Can we fucking discuss the rest of this later, after we've killed these things? Where the hell-” He was back to back with Steve now, and as something came in for the back of his head, Steve snagged him with one arm and dragged him down, pinning him between his body and the shield.

Clint took it out with a well placed arrow, and it went down to the street, spraying chunks of metal like a stone hitting a puddle.

Iron Man started to straighten up and Steve grabbed the chestplate, his fingers hooking into the spot where the neck met the chest, right over the collarbone. “Put the visor up,” he snapped.

“Cap, it's not-”

“Put the visor UP.” He was breathing hard, he was dizzy, he was having trouble making his eyes focus. Steve wanted to scream or shake him or howl with it. “Do it, now!”

There was only a second's pause, and then the visor flipped up. Tony stared at him, his face so familiar, so normal that Steve wanted to scream, or laugh, or cry. He sucked in a breath, and another. “It's okay, Cap,” Tony was saying, and it was Tony, it was Tony, thank you, merciful and benevolent God, thank you. “It's me. I'm okay. I'm sorry, I know you must've-” He leaned forward, and took a shot over Steve's shoulder, and for an instant he was so close that Steve could feel Tony's breath against his skin, hot and damp and real. “I'm sorry, Cap, I swear, I'm fine.”

His eyes were beautiful this close, full of light and humor and something uniquely Tony, something that had always stymied Steve's attempt to define it, like there was a spark of something there at the man's core that lit him from within. “You going to prove it?” Steve said, and his voice sounded like gravel, raw and low. He wanted to blame that on the smoke in the air.

Tony's brows drew together, and then he made the connection, a broad smile, real and sharp, creasing his face. “I am not singing the teapot song for you, Captain Sassypants.” He didn't need to, anyway, he was circling with Steve, the movements of his body as natural, as familiar to Steve as his own. Steve knew where he would turn before he did it, knew how he'd put his feet, how he'd angle himself against an attack. There was no question it was Tony, their Tony, his Tony. 

“Sure, you'll do it for Clint, but not for me?” Steve ducked, sent the shield spiraling out to pick off a winged abomination. His aim was perfect, his instincts untouched by the utter chaos in his head. “We know who your favorite is.”

Tony wrapped an arm around his waist, yanking him close and pushing off with his repulsors, carrying them both a few yards away, avoiding a massive chunk of stone and glass that came crashing down. “Don't be like that,” Tony said, flipping his visor back down. “You'll always be my favorite. It's not my fault that you weren't around for our drunken ramblings.”

“Sorry,” Steve said, and an incoming robot monstrosity met its end on the blunt force of his fist. “I never get invited to the fun parties.”

“Hate to interrupt, gentlemen,” Natasha said, her voice droll over the comm, “but we've got movement on sixth, and your friends are having problems with the police, Iron Man.”

“Gotcha,” Tony said, and he took a single step before Steve's fingers clamped down on his wrist.

“You stay right here,” Steve bit out.

Tony paused. “I have to go, Cap. We need the air support, these things have us out numbered and outclassed. I've got to get airborne.” His hand came up to cover Steve's, squeezing. “I'm not going to disappear again. I promise, I will come back.”

Steve's fingers tightened on his wrist, his fingers biting into the metal, feeling it flex beneath his gloved grip. He sucked in a breath and tasted death and smoke. The blank face of the Iron Man armor was a mirror he didn't want to look into. “Cap,” and it was Tony's voice, he could hear it through the speaker's mechanical alterations. “I am coming back.”

Steve's hand dropped away, and he turned as the high whine of metal wings brought his body around. “As soon as we're done here. You get yourself back here, the moment you can.”

Tony flipped him a salute that held no mockery. “I promise.” And with a roar of the repulsors, he was up and gone. Steve was running, shield up, his whole body pushing forward hard and fast to destroy, to rip through everything that was still standing in his way.

“I've got eyes on our boy,” Clint said, his voice laconic. “And by the way? These arrows? I want more.”

“I think that can be arranged,” Tony said, humor and sharp intelligence there in his words. “Widow, what's your six?”

Steve heard them talking, the sharp, hard notes of Natasha's voice, the warm roar of Thor's, the clipped, precise presentation of Coulson's. “Coulson, could you put the word out to our allies and the authorities and make sure that they don't start shooting the alien race that Iron Man has brought home with him?”

“I've notified everyone already,” Coulson said. “Fantastic Four acknowledge the information, Wolverine responded on behalf of the X-Men with the following, 'Of course they're his fucking problem, tell Stark to control these things.'”

“He can suck a fat one,” Tony said, cheerfully.

And it felt normal. It felt like a hundred other battles they'd been in, that they'd faced as a team. Steve shut everything else down, everything that was buzzing in his head, and waded into the fray once again.

The bugs went down, some harder than others, and at one point, Steve had to half-tackle, half-shield one of the aliens, throwing himself forward and folding them both under his shield as a massive bug slammed into them. Steve folded himself around the thin, fragile form, and the weight pushed down until he thought his legs would break with the force.

Then, just like that, they were free, and he was stumbling to his feet. He stared, blinking at the alien, who nodded and spread its fingers in front of its chest before disappearing again.

Natasha lunged through the streets, a pack of the aliens following her like cheerful puppies, and she flicked and hand and they obeyed. Above them, Hawkeye rained arrows like hailstones down on the street, and there had to have been other archers at work, because over the comm, Steve could hear him chortling and throwing out encouragement and swear words with equal abandon. Thor cut low with one of them clinging to his shoulders, taking shots with unerring accuracy.

And as Coulson was updating them all with Richards' progress, letting them know that the portals were sealed, that all they had to do was mop up the last of the dang things, when one of them hit Tony hard, coming in low and sharp, beneath his oddly fashioned arm, driving him down, straight down into the street.

He hit and the street shattered under him.

Steve was already running, picking off anything that got low enough to meet the business end of his shield, but Tony was already struggling to his feet. “Status,” Coulson snapped out.

“Just got the breath knocked out of me,” Tony said, stumbling towards the broken remains of a wall. “I'm fine, I'm on my way back up.”

“We've got clean up,” Natasha said, her voice cool. 

“Widow's right. Street's almost clear, your little blue buddies are doing a brilliant job of taking care of the stragglers,” Clint said. “Cap, you got him?”

“Yes,” Steve said, pounding along the street, moving towards Tony as quick as he could manage.

“I'll let you know if the situation changes.”

Tony was slumped forward, elbows on his knees, hips braced against a shattered. His head came up as Steve's pounding footsteps reached him, and he flipped the visor up. “I'm okay,” he said, holding up a hand. “I'm fine. Just winded.” He straightened up, and his arm was wrapped around his torso, wincing as he forced his body up. Steve caught his shoulder, steadying him. “We clear?”

“So it would seem.” Steve resisted the urge to just throw himself forward, to wrap his arms around Tony and cling. “Reed got the portals closed.”

“Fuckin' Richards,” Tony grumbled, and Steve started to laugh. “No, seriously, this is his goddamn fault, I am sick and tired-”

Steve leaned his forehead against the wall. “You are just- You are-” He choked on a laugh, his fingers squeezing the smooth, sleek surface of the armor before he let go. “You never do anything the way you're supposed to, Tony.”

“Who decides how I'm supposed to do something?” Tony asked, with a faint smile.

Steve's smile died. “I thought, for once, that I was going to save you,” he said, and he slumped against the wall next to Tony, letting the cool of the stone seep through his uniform. Everything hurt and none of it mattered, because Tony was there, looking at him with warm brown eyes. “For once, I could save you. And instead, as usual, you came back on your own time, under your own power, just in time to save me.” He leaned his head back against the wall, and rested his shield against the wall next to his legs. “That's always the way, with us. You've never-” He swallowed hard.

Tony's head was turned towards him. He reached up, pulling the helmet off. “Robert Burns,” he said, as if that made any sense at all.

Steve gave him a sideways glance. “Do you have a head injury, Tony?” he asked, and that was a worry, the man had come down hard on that one bounce, he'd seen the way the street had cracked under the impact of Tony's weight.

“No, no, see-” Tony sucked in a quick breath, and his face was pale and tired, but it was Tony, it was always Tony, and Steve's hands were in fists at his sides. His muscles bunched against the need to pick the smaller man up and just cling to him, helpless and lost and as afraid as a child needing a favorite toy for comfort. Tony continued on, oblivious to the fact that Steve was losing his mind. “It's like when we're playing Trivial Pursuit, and do you think it's weird that it is always, ALWAYS Thor who insists on us playing Trivial Pursuit, when he stands no chance whatsoever at winning? I mean, there are a thousand games in this world, and he wants to play the one that-”

“Tony,” Steve said, grinning at him, because he'd missed that babble. Warm and real and honest, Tony just saying whatever crossed his mind, before it even could cross his mind. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing, never mind.” Tony grinned at him, and his eyes were that particular color of whiskey brown that only occurred when he was wearing the armor outside, the gold reflecting in the sunlight and making his eyes glow, so much warmth and humor and TONY. “But remember what Hawkeye said? When the cards ask any questions about a Scottish poet?”

“The answer is always Robbie Burns?” Steve said.

“Yes.” And Tony nodded, like that was that, like that made sense, like Steve wasn't losing his goddamn mind on a city street, because Coulson was trying to convince the White House that the aliens weren't a threat and Natasha was letting them all touch her hair and Tony was there, safe and sound and so perfect that Steve wanted to cry. 

Some of his confusion must've bled out into his face, because Tony's grin softened, warmed. “It's always you. The answer,” he said, spreading his hands, and wincing just a tiny bit, “the answer is always, forever, you. Who saved me, who was waiting for me, who I fought my way back to, who I came home to-” He reached out and tapped Steve in the middle of his chest, right in the center of the white star, right where Dr. Erskine had tapped him, what felt like a lifetime ago. “It's always you.”

The first laugh caught Steve off-guard.

Judging by the look on Tony's face, it caught him off-guard, too. He blinked, eyes warm and startled. And then, he was laughing too, not knowing why, but he was laughing, teeth flashing white and Steve doubled over, laughing so hard he was crying, or maybe he was just crying, and Tony's hand was on his back, gently rubbing back and forth and Steve shook his head, trying to choke back the laughter.

“I'm losing my mind,” he said, and he pushed himself up, and his cheeks were wet, were hot, and he couldn't stop laughing, couldn't stop the semi-hysterical sounds that he was making.

“It's okay,” Tony said, grinning at him. “You get used to the sensation, after a while. You can get used to just about anything, it's remarkable how-”

Steve didn't even realize he was moving, didn't even know he had, but suddenly he was looming over Tony, Tony's back against the wall, his eyes huge and startled and his hands on Steve's chest. Steve stared down at him, his breath coming in raw gasps. “I am losing my mind.”

“Probably,” Tony said, and his head tipped to the side, brows drawing together, eyes dancing. “What are you-”

Steve was kissing him.

He had a moment to realize that this was not a good idea, this was disastrous, this was going to ruin everything. He didn't care. To hell with it. He'd claim a head injury later. Hysteria. Shell shock. Overwhelming relief. Something. He didn't care.

He didn't care because he was kissing Tony Stark.

It was awkward and rough and had no grace to it, not that Steve had much practice at this, but he wanted it, he wanted it with a desperation that verged on necessity. Tony's mouth opened under his, making a shocked sound, and Steve pressed his advantage, his lips parting against Tony's, pushing him back against the wall with his hands, his body, the force of the kiss.

There was an instant where it was horrible, just horrible, Tony's hands scrabbling at his chest, garbled noises pouring from his mouth, noises that Steve swallowed without a qualm, and Steve held out as long as he could, pressed his advantage long past when he should've stopped. Tony's fist glanced off of his shoulder, and Steve jerked backwards, choking out an agonized sound as his hands dropped from the armor. He got a step back, just one and then another, his legs trembling under him, and he was making inarticulate sounds of apology even as he retreated.

He put a foot of space between them, his whole body shaking, before Tony lunged forward.

Steve had no idea what was going on, but Tony was in his arms, Tony's arms around his neck, fierce and hard and sharp with the strength the armor granted him. Steve was making noises, embarrassing whimpering noises into Tony's mouth, his hands sliding up the smooth planes of the armor, looking desperately for a handhold and hating, hating the Iron Man armor, because he wanted Tony, human and warm and preferably naked in his arms, pressed against his body, under him, above him, oh, God, he didn't care. 

He didn't care because Tony Stark was kissing him.

Tony's tongue was in his mouth, and wow, yes, that was, that was exceptionally nice, and the rough scratch of Tony's beard against his chin, against his lips, and when Tony yanked his mouth away, Steve groaned, objecting. Tony's mouth slid against his jaw, his neck, the flick of his tongue against his skin making Steve jerk and gasp. He'd found a grip on the armor's plates, and his fingers dug in, super strength peeling at the metal, and he felt it bend and flex beneath his hands.

He could do it. He could strip that armor off of Tony. He could rip it apart with his bare hands. He could, and there was a damn good chance that he would. He groaned something into Tony's hair, and it was probably the other man's name, but his voice shuddered on a thready whisper, barely audible to his own ears. Tony's teeth scraped on his neck, and his sound of pleasure, of want, was humiliating.

He didn't care, because it was Tony.

“Shield Brother!”

Thor's bellow shook the street, and Tony and Steve sprang apart, the kiss ending with as much grace and dignity as it had begun. Steve stumbled, his back, his head, hitting a chunk of a wall as he grabbed for his shield, and Tony's face was flushed and his pupils blown wide as he grabbed for a piece of metal rebar to steady himself.

Through his comm, Steve was pretty sure he heard Clint say, “Thor, you fucking IDIOT,” but he didn't have time to think about that. He didn't have time to think about anything because Thor was there, arms thrown wide, and he was lifting Tony off of his feet in a massive bear hug. Tony made a sharp, panicked noise, but it was cut of as Thor's arms tightened, pinning his arms to his sides.

“Hi, buddy,” Tony managed before Thor kissed him.

It was fast and before Steve could give in to the very, very bad idea to punch Thor in the face for it, Tony was struggling free. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he was choking out as he managed to get down to the ground again. He scrambled backwards, horror on his face. “What the HELL? You- Jane- Don't do that again, no!”

Thor blinked at him, confused. “I thought this was how we were greeting you,” he said, looking at Steve, who opened his mouth, and shut it, and opened it again, and there were no words. He stood there, clutching his shield in front of him because arousal and this costume was not a good match, and hoping to die of terminal embarrassment.

“Christ, Thor, I cannot believe you,” Clint said, dropping down to the street from a shattered fire escape. “Shut up now, I'll explain it to you later.”

“Better you than me.” Natasha slipped between the boys, her hips swinging as she strode straight for Tony. In a movement almost too fast for Steve's eyes to track, she brought her arm up and slapped Tony hard across the cheek. The sound was sharp and hard, and Tony's head snapped around with the force of it. Before he could even recover, she had his face in between her palms, laying a kiss on each of his cheeks, and on his mouth. “Don't ever do that again,” she hissed at him.

“I missed you, too,” Tony said, grinning. “Jesus, why are you so mean?”

Bruce was limping up behind them, silent and strained, his eyes huge, his jaw working, and Tony spotted him immediately. “You okay?” Tony asked, brow furrowing even as he hugged Natasha with one arm. Bruce nodded.

“You?” he asked, his throat working as Coulson appeared behind him, placing a shirt over his bare shoulders. Bruce glanced in his direction, his mouth working in something approaching a smile. He looked back to Tony, and his eyes were big and dark, and afraid.

Tony nodded. “I'm fine. I'm sorry. I-”

There was the sound of feet, delicate and light, and everyone turned, almost as one, taking up defensive positions around Tony as the alien stilled there. He spread his hands wide, showing that he held no weapons. Steve didn't give a flying fig, he stepped in front of Tony, his shield up and ready, backing Tony up against the wall, pinning Tony's form between his back and the brick.

The alien blinked at them, and a faint smile transformed his features. He took a step back, hands still up and open, ears flaring away from his skull, freckles sharp and obvious against his skin. Tony's hand went to Steve's shoulder, squeezing. “He's not going to hurt me,” Tony said his voice soothing.

“He's not taking you, either,” Steve said, shifting his weight. He'd never been so absolutely certain of anything as he was of that.

“Thor, we could use some allspeak here,” Tony said. “C'mon, I've got about eight minutes before I pass out from massive blood loss, so can we just do this?”

Steve glared at him. “That's not funny,” he said, in an undertone, uncomfortable with the aliens' presence. Tony gave him a one-shouldered shrug.

“Aye.” Thor took a step forward, lowering Mjolnir, letting the massive hammer swing against his hip. “Greetings to you, noble warrior. I am Thor Odinson, of the Royal House of Asgard, and of the Avengers here on Midgard. Speak, if you will, and I will translate.”

The alien's eyes flared wide, and his smile deepened. He rolled off a chittering wave of sounds, and Thor nodded. “He says,” Thor said to the Avengers, “that he is of a race called the Easah, he is the-” Thor made a humming noise under his breath. “Captain, perhaps is the best equivalent. The warrior leader? One who leads, far from home?” he asked the alien, who nodded.

“He brings greetings from his home. He-” Thor's lips pursed, his face getting tight, brows drawing down over his brilliant eyes. “Apologizes for not returning Tony. It was poorly done of you, we were much concerned,” Thor said to the alien, who nodded again. Another wave of language. Thor sighed. “He said that they so enjoyed the Stark's company that they were reluctant to relinquish him. But they did not understand that he was-” Thor frowned. “I do not understand this concept. I am sorry, do you have another way to explain?”

The alien waved a hand at Steve, who glared at him. The alien tipped his head to the side, studying Steve with huge, brilliant eyes. Steve stared back, refusing to be intimidated. He started speaking, and Thor chuckled. “He says,” Thor said, with a wide grin, “that you have saved his life, and thus, he owes you a boon.”

“A boon?” Steve gritted out. “Fine. I want him,” he said, twisting enough to stab a finger in Tony's direction. “That's my boon. Those are my demands. I get him.”

Tony threw his hands in the air, a garbled noise slipping from him. “The fifth reason!” he shrieked, and everyone jerked around to stare at him. “Oh my FUCKING God, the fifth-” He stopped as he took in the wide-eyed, confused looks that were pointed in his direction. “Never mind,” he said, managing a smile. “You know what? Never-”

He put a hand on Steve's shoulder again, squeezing. “It's okay. It is, really.” He stepped out from behind Steve, and Steve felt his heart seize. He couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything, but Tony stayed close, stayed within reach, and Steve kept his grip on his control with a force of will.

Tony stared up at the alien. “Chief.”

“Ony,” the alien responded, reaching out, and Steve was between them before he even registered that he wanted to move, let alone that he was moving.

“Don't,” Steve gritted out. “Just... Don't.”

The alien gave him a look he couldn't understand, but he nodded, stepping back. “Ony,” he repeated.

“Chief.” Tony leaned against Steve's back, his hand brushing light against the back of Steve's neck. “I'm staying here. I like you. I like your people. I'm happy to visit, but I need a way home. This is where I belong.” Thor translated along with him, repeating his words with grave force.

The alien nodded, and the behind him, the others nodded, too. “I understand,” Thor translated as he spoke. “But you are the first. You are the only. To pass the test and take nothing. You are an enigma. A puzzle. We do not understand, but there is-”

Tony staggered against Steve's shoulder, and Steve grabbed for him with his free hand. Tony's face had gone stark white. “What do you mean, the only? The first?” His eyes went wide, his lips parted, his jaw sagging. “There were more of those things. There were more of those things?” His voice rose, high and sharp and outraged. Thor, his face startled, repeated the words.

The alien blinked, slow and drawn out. 'Thousands,” Thor translated.

Tony's weight fell against Steve, who wrapped an arm around his waist, supporting him, holding him close. He didn't know what was happening, what they were talking about, but Tony looked like he was about to throw up. 

“Explain this to me,” Tony said, his voice soft. “Help me understand. How-”

“It was centuries ago.” The alien and Thor had one voice now, the words rolling into one sound. “An attempt to help those with the ability. To grant them knowledge. To bring them to us. To show them the way.” The alien's face went shuttered, and behind him, his people shuffled, hands and fingers and palms dancing, faint sounds that reminded Steve of a funeral dirge, sounds of grief and agony. “Our ancestors realized their mistake almost immediately, and they reclaimed all that they could find. Only a handful disappeared, never to be seen again. The one you found was the first, in a hundred years.”

Tony was breathing hard. “You fucking handed a grenade to a toddler and pulled the pin,” he said, a faint, horrible sound of laughter beneath the words. “You-” He glanced up, and his fingers bit into Steve's shoulder, and Steve didn't understand, but he didn't care. He just held on. “What was the death toll? Thousands? Millions? Do you have numbers high enough to calculate?”

Thor was silent, staring, and Tony snapped at him. “Tell them! Ask them!” He turned to the alien. “I was the first to not use it? I was the... The only one?” he yelled. “You want to know why? Because trust me, I have a remarkable capability for self-delusion, I knew, I just knew that I could control it, that I could use it. I'm a futurist, and you gave me-” He stopped, sucked in a breath. “I'm selfish, and I'm greedy, and I make horrible choices with my life. I could see, I could see everything, I could see what it was, what I could do with it, and I wanted it. You want to know why I put it down?” He swung an arm around, stabbing a finger at Clint, who recoiled. “Because he was five feet from me! Because if I had done it, if I had used it, if I had taken what you offered, he would've been- I will take risks with my own life without a thought, but I will not kill my teammates.” 

His face twisted, and he took a deep breath. “Congratulations, Barton. By your very presence, you may well have saved the fucking world.” 

“Awesome,” Clint said, eyes wide. “Stark, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Bartonia had a very dark little secret,” Tony said. “It's how they found me. It's why they took me. They've been watching me since then. Trying to-” He looked at the aliens.

“To understand what makes you different,” the alien finished for him. “Yes.” He spread his hands, and the gesture was echoed, over and over behind him. “Why you create the things you create. Toys. Foolishness. To be offered more and reject it-”

“I've taken enough lives,” Tony said. “There's enough blood on my hands. I'm sick of destroying.” He sucked in a breath. Another, and it was labored. “I wanted, I want, to create. To build. To make something with a heart.” He shrugged. “What's to understand?”

“You are unique.” The alien blinked. “What do you want? What would you have us do?”

“Get rid of it. Mount Doom that fucker.”

Thor paused. “I have no way to translate that reference,” he said, disapproval on his face, and Tony grinned.

“Destroy it,” he simplified.

“They will never again see it,” the alien agreed. He paused, stepped forward. Steve intercepted him, and the alien looked at him. His speech rose in timbre, and Thor blinked.

“How much- How much blood can he lose?” Thor translated, his voice blank.

“What are you-” Steve swung around, staring at Tony, who blinked at him. His head dropped, and Steve followed his gaze. The oddly shaped arm, the replacement piece of the armor that Steve hadn't seen before, was hanging at his side. As they watched, the red of the metal took on a dark hue. As if the gauntlet was melting, the armored finger tips stretched, and a drop of blood, then two, tumbled to the street.

“I miscalculated,” Tony said, his voice faint. “Seven minutes, thirteen seconds.” Then he pitched forward.

Steve caught him before he could hit the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony's fine. Steve's fine. The Avengers will be trading money now that they've got an answer for the betting pool. Tony's adopted an alien race. Tune in for the last chapter to find out what the frick is going on.
> 
> That is, if I figure it out.


	9. Chapter 9

*

There was nothing like waking up in SHIELD medical. For Tony, it was always a good/bad situation. The good was that hey, he was waking up! The bad was, he had to have fucked up royally to be waking up in this particular location. 

But waking up at all was a good thing.

“You fucker.”

Tony grinned. “You do not cut me much slack, do you, Barton?” he asked, his voice raw and husky. He opened his eyes, blinking hard against the light. Clint was a dark shadow in a visitor's chair, his bow braced between his hands. A row of arrows was stabbed into the arm, lined up for easy use. Tony opened his mouth, and winced, and Clint reached over to pour a cup of water.

“You do not deserve slack.” Still, Clint's smile was warm as he leaned over Tony, offering him the straw. “Drink.” He watched Tony carefully, making sure he swallowed. 

Tony gulped it down until Clint pulled the straw away from him. He made a protesting, whining noise, which Clint ignored. “Are you guarding ME, or GUARDING me?” Tony asked, making a face as his throat ached with the words.

“I am here to make sure no one makes you go AWOL again. Also to make sure you don't chose to go AWOL. So I guess a little of each. We've been switching off on Tony-watching duty.” Clint relaxed back into his seat, his voice pitched low. “What do you remember?”

Tony considered that. “Vienna, scientific conference, kidnapping, Hydra, Hammer, aliens, robotic insects-” He froze as something else slammed into his brain with the sound of angels singing.

He had a distinct, crystal-clear memory of Steve Rogers dragging him off his damn feet and sticking his tongue into Tony's mouth. Well. That was... That could be good. Or not so good. “Oh, God,” he said aloud.

“Yeah.” Clint tipped his chin. “He's been here since you were brought in.”

Tony rolled his head to the other side, blinking. Steve was resting there, his arms folded on the edge of the bed, his head pillowed in them. He was breathing, slow and even and deep, his pale hair bright against the white linens. A familiar sheet was clutched in one fist, barely visible beneath his cheek. “They were delivering my letters,” Tony said, relieved. At least they'd tried. On the table next to Steve, dozens of sheets were stacked in a loose pile.

“Yes, your weird little friends were dropping them off in the workshop. Only problem with that? No one has been in the workshop. In that we were all still wandering in circles in Thailand.” Clint rolled his eyes. “We're still trying to figure out how they picked up and dropped things off without being seen, but they did bring the letters. Apparently, the movement wasn't enough to set off any of Jarvis' motion sensors, and Dummy, being the obedient little lab assistant that he is, was doing the lab cleaning thing every day and just adding them to the paperwork that Pepper had left for you.” Clint paused. “Have I mentioned that I hate you for sleeping through the whole mess of us figuring this stuff out?”

“What the hell happened?” Tony asked, trying to straighten up. His chest ached, and he pushed the sheet aside. “Bandages aren't good.”

“Not in general, no. One of the seams on your jury-rigged armor gave way. Whole thing twisted in and went right into your side, made a pretty deep cut over your ribs and sliced open the underside of your arm. You'd lost a lot of blood.” He paused. “A little rough handling from your teammates did not help the situation. Can you please learn to say, 'I need medical attention?'”

“That's rich, coming from you.” Tony sucked in a breath. “Son-of-a-bitch, did I crack my ribs again?”

“Yep. Well, you, or Thor. Getting shoved up against a building by a Super Soldier also probably didn't-”

“Yes, thank you, we don't-” Tony gritted his teeth, trying to tell himself that he was definitely NOT blushing, because that was unacceptable, Jesus Christ that was not acceptable.. “Fine, I'll just-” The medical haze was slowly lifting, and he jerked. “The scientists in Thailand, did you-”

“We were right behind you. Got 'em all. Including your little minion Harris. Kid took a header down four flights of collapsing stairs and still bitched out Natasha at the bottom when she showed up.”

He couldn't help but chuckle, relief making him slump in a boneless, exhausted heap. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” He sipped at the water. “The Easah?”

“They've still waiting to see you.” Clint put one booted foot up on the edge of the bed, his fingers dancing along the shafts of the waiting arrows. “Fury and the rest of the politicos are in a complete snit fit, because they refuse to agree to anything before they discuss it with you first. Mostly they just ignore anything and everything that doesn't interest them and the politicians? They're not interested.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Tony said. He shifted, trying to find a comfortable position. It wasn't happening. “Can I just pretend that none of this is happening?”

“Not a chance.” Clint took a breath, slow and measured. “You want to tell me what's going on?”

“Not so much, no. I haven't quite figured it out yet.” Tony reached over, studiously avoiding Clint's eyes. His fingers brushed Steve's hair, and the other man came awake with a jolt. He snapped upright, blue eyes clearing. “Hey, Cap,” Tony said with a grin. 

Steve sucked in a breath, the sound echoing between his teeth, and shoved a hand through his hair. If it was a tad unstable, his fingers trembling, no one was going to bring it up. “Tony.”

“Yep.” Tony tried to work himself into a sitting position, and winced. Steve was on his feet in a heartbeat, sliding a hand behind Tony's back and angling him up against the pillows. Tony probably should've objected, but for an instant, just an instant, he leaned into Steve's shoulder. His face buried in Steve's shoulder, he wondered if everything was always this difficult, or if he made things worse.

Steve gently pushed him back to the pillows, and Tony felt his face heat. “Thanks,” he said.

“Of course,” Steve said, and he was avoiding Tony's eyes. His cheeks, his ears were red, and Tony felt his stomach sink, a cold, hard ball of ice developing down low in his gut. “So, uh, how're you-”

Yeah. Tony recognized that look. The look of, 'wow, did I make a poor choice, what was I thinking, getting involved with Tony Stark?' Usually he got to wait until the awkward morning after when one or both of them were sobering up, but hey, Steve had always been special. Steve was better than anyone else Tony had ever known, so it only made sense that he figured out what a bad idea it was to get too close to Tony faster than anyone else.

Crippling shame should at least come with some good memories. That kiss had been far, far too short for how much pain it caused.

Tony took a deep breath and dragged the ragged, shattered remains of his pride back around him like the security blanket that it was. “It's okay, Steve. It's fine, it happens.”

Steve's head jerked up, his blue eyes wide and bright. For an instant, they looked wet, but he blinked and it was gone. “Tony? Are you all right? Do you need-”

Tony slumped back against the pillows, staring at the ceiling. It was white and boring and he could pretend none of this was happening. “I'm fine. It's okay, look, don't worry about it. It's not like either of us meant anything by it.”

Steve froze, and he was adorable, his eyes big and sad and a faint crease in his cheek from where he'd slept on his watch, and he was so human, so perfect that Tony wanted to cry. Instead, he forced a grin. “Adrenaline, everything gets all messed up in your head, and next thing you know, you're laying one on the nearest person. Hell, I'm surprised that Thor hasn't done it before now.”

He reached out, forced himself to touch Steve's arm, and the contact hurt, there was an almost physical pain involved, and he jerked his fingers back almost as soon as he made contact, because he wanted to scream, to sob. Instead, he kept a smile on his face and his voice even. “I know you didn't mean anything by it.”

“Tony, I-” Steve swallowed, and his shoulders slumped. “Tony, look, I'm-” He stared at Tony for a second. “I'm sorry.”

Tony's eyes flickered shut for just a second. “Yeah. Don't even worry about it. Not the first time someone's made a mistake and kissed me when they shouldn't have. It's something that happens.” 

Not like this. Never like this, but Steve was relaxing, and his breathing was slowly evening out, slowly going normal again, losing the shuddering, aching note. When he met Tony's eyes again, it was with a warm smile. “I'm sorry,” he repeated, and his voice broke between the words. “I shouldn't have-”

Tony resisted the urge to just roll over, yank the blankets over his head and scream. “It's fine. Friends?”

“Friends,” Steve agreed, and that was something. That was still something.

Tony could live with this. Somehow.

*

Clint stared at them. They weren't. They couldn't. There was no possible way...

The two of them were staring at each other with identical expressions of brain-dead adoration and misery.

They were. They were trying to hit the big red reset button on this. They were going to pretend that it never happened. They had made out in the middle of fucking Manhattan, Clint had been twenty stories up and he saw the steam rising off of them, they had had their tongues in each others mouths, and they were trying to retcon the whole thing.

They were fucking morons, and Clint could not take this any more. Sure, it would invalidate him from the betting pool, and Natasha was going to kick his ass for depriving her of her favorite broken set of human beings, but Clint could not possibly take this any longer.

“You know what?” he said, making both of them jump. It was so obvious from how they stared at him that they had both forgotten that he was in the room. “We should celebrate. Italian, what do you think of Italian, never mind, everyone loves Italian.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, avoiding his bandaged wrist. “You free this Wednesday? Like, seven pm on Wednesday?” he asked Tony.

“Yes?” Tony said, blinking.

“Steve?”

“Sure,” Steve said.

“Great! I'm not. You two go on without me.” Clint stabbed a finger in Tony's direction. “Wear a nice suit, and don't start drinking before hand, it's insulting when you show up drunk.”

“Hey-”

“You,” Clint said, making Steve jump. “For God's sake, do not show up in your Army uniform, he will panic and crawl under his workbench and we'll be forced to reenact the scene from Pirates of the Caribbean where the dog is sitting there with the keys in the jail, except for us, it'll be a bunch of Avengers trying to coax Dummy into opening the damn door for us.”

“HEY!” Tony snapped, but Steve just nodded, his face intent, serious.

“Good point,” he said. “Blue suit?”

“I don't know. Ask Pepper. Or Coulson. No, Coulson can't see you naked, I'm a jealous bastard. Natasha. Pepper can deal with Stark, you talk to Nat.” He stood. “Gentlemen. Let me make this cut and dried. You are both laughably gone over each other. It's mutal. Steve, Stark's been checking out your ass during every goddamn mission we've had since the team was formed; you walk out in the uniform and he walks into walls. Tony, Steve's got a sketchbook full of drawings of you and what you might look like naked.

“You're going on a date. It's going to be fucking magical. Buy each other a corsage or something, I don't know, we can have a superhero prom here, whatever. But you're going. And if either of you try to duck this, I swear to God I will find myself some heart-tipped arrows and march you into the restaurant with one pointed at the base of your skull.”

“Are you... Threatening us into dating?” Tony asked. “This seems highly unethical.”

“I could blackmail you, if you'd prefer,” Clint said. “Since I hear that Nat has a great picture of a worried looking Captain America carrying a bleeding and unconscious Iron Man through the streets of New York. Princess style.” He grinned. “This seems like the sort of thing the internet would be interested in having access to, don't you think?”

“Clint!” Steve yelped, his face going beet red.

Tony raised his uninjured arm, eyes wide. “This is relevant to my interests,” he said, his cheeks flushed. 

“I'll see to it that she forwards you a copy.” Clint snapped a look from one to the other. “Date.”

Steve gave Tony a heartrendingly hopeful look. “Date?” he asked, and his voice was a little too high, a little too breathless.

Tony stared back at him. “Um, you don't have to do anything, you know, just ignore him, you don't have to do anything that you don't want to-” He rubbed a hand over his face and immediately choked on a sound of pain. “Ow, ow, ow-”

“I have my bow. Right here. Do I really need to get my fucking bow?” Clint asked no one in particular. “Seriously. Is this fucking middle school?”

Steve reached out and caught Tony's wrist, pulling his hand away from his face, giving him no where to hide. “I want to,” he said, his voice stronger now. More confident. Still achingly hopeful. “Do you?”

Tony stared at him, and Jesus, his eyes were huge, Clint wasn't sure how he did that, but damn, it was effective. “I do,” Tony said, and the grin that broke on Steve's face was almost pornographic.

“Yeah, you need a few dates or a trip to Vegas to be throwing around 'I do's' right now,” Clint said. “My work here is done.” He paused, halfway to the door. “Just one thing, Cap? Uh, first, there's cameras in here, don't know if you know that, I didn't know that, and that's not a discussion you want to have with Fury, Phil was-” He made a face. “Not so happy. Second, Tony's not really up to rough handling right now, and you're a big guy, so maybe you-”

“I will kill you,” Tony gritted out, as Steve melted into a puddle of painful looking embarrassment. “I am not exaggerating here, Barton, I will end you.”

“Not threatening, Stark. You can barely move.” Clint flipped them a salute and sauntered out of the room. He paused in the doorway, reaching back to pull the door shut behind him, and caught just a glimpse of Steve weaving his fingers with Tony's, the gesture cautious and careful and reverent. He cupped Tony's battered fingers between his two big hands, and leaned forward.

Tony met him halfway, his body arching up from the bed, and that probably took more energy, more stamina than he really had, but Clint remembered being there, wanting that kiss enough to bleed for it, literally and figuratively, needing that touch of lips and hands and skin.

He shut the door as their lips met, and leaned his shoulder back against the closed panel. Whistling under his breath, he crossed his arms over his chest and made himself an immovable object.

“What are you doing?” 

He tipped his head towards Phil, who looked just a little rumpled, a little stressed. It was a good look on him. “Sorry, sir, this area is under quarantine.”

“Good try, Barton.” Coulson paused in front of him. “Move, or I'll move you.”

Clint straightened up, hopeful. Also a little aroused. Okay, more than a little aroused. “Are you armed?”

“Always. Move.”

“Sorry, sir, really, they're...” He cleared his throat. “Otherwise occupied.”

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” Coulson said, rubbing a hand over his face. “Did you tell them about the cameras?”

“And reminded Steve that Stark's pretty much made of half-set paper mache right now,” Clint said, with a grin. “No way he'll go beyond kissing, and Stark's not strong enough to force the issue. It'll be fine.”

“You and I have very different ideas of what constitutes 'fine,' Barton.”

“Nah.” Clint glanced up and down the empty corridor. “C'mon. Have a heart, sir. I seem to recall a time or two when you were a little eager to make sure I was still with you after a bad op.”

“I'd appreciate it if you'd have fewer of those.” Phil leaned against the wall next to him, bracing his shoulder against Clint's. For an instant, they just stood there, side by side, the bare contact of their bodies through multiple layers of cloth not quite enough, but enough to calm them both.

“How's it going?” Clint said, hand braced on his bow.

Phil snorted under his breath. “There are two hundred plus aliens sitting in the lobby and low level conference rooms right now, refusing to leave until they see their Ony. Director Fury is wrangling the Security Council over the fact that we have an alien invasion in our lobby and the remains of another one in the streets of New York. I have paperwork to file about several kidnappings and a couple of alien invasions, and none of my team are currently available to give me their reports. How do you think it's going?”

Clint rubbed a hand over his mouth, smirking behind his fingers. “Sounds like fun. How are we keeping the aliens in our lobby and not wandering the city?”

“Thor and Bruce are teaching them to knit,” Coulson said, his voice arctic, and Clint had to bite his lip to keep from laughing out loud. “Have you ever seen two hundred aliens in badly knitted mittens and hats?”

“Cannot say I've had that pleasure, sir, no. Where are they getting the yarn?”

“Fury sent Hill to the nearest craft shop. It was in Queens. Judging by the questions being thrown around the executive offices, there were problematic questions about weight and gauge and needle size and material composition and color of all things. It's possible she lost patience and drew her sidearm, explaining that the swift surrender of their entire stock of yarn was necessary for national security.” 

Clint lost it. Utterly and completely lost it. Doubled over laughing, he gasped and choked until he could feel the tears rolling down his cheeks. Next to him, Coulson gave a faint chuckle, and that set Clint off again. “You are fucking kidding me,” he said at last.

“I could not possibly make that up,” Coulson said, arching an eyebrow. 

“There's that.” Clint slumped against the wall. “How's the paperwork going?”

“It's getting difficult to keep the secrets separate from the lies,” Coulson said, his eyes hooded. “Any luck getting Stark to tell you about what he and the head honcho were discussing? Because I, for one, am not happy about the course of that discussion.”

“Not a word.” Clint sucked in a long breath. “He seemed pretty adamant that he wasn't going to talk to me about it, which, hey, I'm not a fan of. If there's a weapon in the tower...”

“You remember the situation?”

Clint shrugged, his face twisting. “I've thought about it a lot since he said the whole thing. I remember him playing with something. I remember him telling me not to touch it. There was a really strange look on his face, but I didn't think that much of it. I mean, considering the situation, nothing short of screaming, flailing panic would've seemed out of the ordinary.” He glanced at Coulson. “You don't think they'll deal with it? Whatever it was?”

“I think they already have. They did that little appearing and disappearing act in the lab, put Jarvis in a tizzy. They took something with them.”

“Then why do you-”

Coulson shifted, bracing his arms on the wall on either side of Clint's body. He leaned in, his forehead resting on Clint's shoulder. Clint stroked an easy hand up his back, tipping his own head forward. “Stark won't discuss it here,” Coulson said into the skin of Clint's neck, and despite the fact that this was an exchange of information disguised as a PDA, Clint couldn't hold back a shudder. “We need to pin him down once he's released.”

“We will,” Clint whispered against Coulson's temple. “We'll find out what he's hiding. Any particular reason why you're worried about this?”

“I think Fury knows more than he's saying. About the object and the situation.”

“Well, fuck,” was all that Clint could think of to say.

“That's pretty much the size of it.” Phil rested his head on Clint's shoulder. “You have any positive news for me?”

Clint thought about it. “They may have gotten their heads out of their asses. They have a date. I threatened them into it.”

“And you think that qualifies as good news? Considering the situation?”

“It's all I got.” Clint smoothed a hand down Coulson's back. “Sorry, sir. But yeah. I do think it counts as a qualifies. Don't you?”

Coulson chuckled. “I suppose I have to take what I can get.”

“Barton!”

“Kinda busy here, Nat,” Clint said, and then couldn't quite hold back an unhappy whimper when Phil pulled away from him. Natasha gave him a nod as she came striding up.

“We need Stark.”

“That's not happening.” Clint slapped a hand on the flat of the door as she reached for the knob, ignoring the icy cold look of death that she leveled at him. “He's awake, and he's otherwise occupied.”

Her face got colder. “He's awake and he's coherent?”

“As much as he ever is.”

“And you chose not to inform the rest of the team of this, why, exactly?”

“Because he and Rogers are currently trying to relearn each other via osmosis, and after the past three weeks, I think the deserve the chance.”

She arched an eyebrow. “This has been going on for a lot longer than three weeks,” she pointed out, a faint note of amusement in her voice.

“It's been going on since they met, but the last three weeks have been so super fun for everyone involved,” Clint said. “I, for one, do not ever want to go through that again. So let them have like ten minutes of alone time, will you please?”

“He needs to be debriefed,” Coulson said.

“Has that ever worked? Honestly, sir. Have ANY of these idiots shown up for a debrief?” Clint said, giving him a sideways look of disdain. “Ever?”

“He's trapped in a medical bed, it's a good time to try.” Phil paused. “Who won the pool, by the way?”

“Banner,” Clint and Natasha said as one.

“Of course.”

“We have bigger problems,” Natasha said, reaching for the handle again, and Clint decided that if she tried to castrate him, Phil would at least attempt to block her. Fondness for that sort of thing and all. “I need to go in there.”

“Rogers is an emotional mess and Stark's got quick hands. Don't just barge in, he's probably at last half naked and we don't need him dying of embarrassment.”

“And the thought of a half-naked Steve Rogers is supposed to, I don't know, dissuade me?” She rolled her eyes. “Still a little slow when it comes to what women want, Clint.”

“It can't be that-”

“Our little friend Darcy was showing the aliens her iPod and when Beyonce's “Single Ladies” came up on the rotation, they started dancing. Which Darcy thought was hysterical, and she now has it playing on repeat on the lobby loudspeakers, and there's a bunch of aliens in half-knitted hats showing the junior agents unfamiliar with the song how to, shall we say, shake it.” Natasha paused. “Fury is going to eat his gun in about ten minutes, so while I appreciate the epic love affair happening here, we really need Tony.”

Coulson pressed a hand to his eyes. Clint stared at the ceiling, his mouth tight. Natasha flicked the tip of one foot against the tile floor in a swift, unrelenting tattoo. 

“Yeah, right.” Clint reached back over his shoulder and bounced his knuckles off the door. “Hey!” he yelled. “Sorry, but the honeymoon's over. We've got a semi-friendly alien invasion to deal with out here!”

There was a long moment of silence, then some very loud cursing. When the door jerked open, Tony was leaning heavily against the wall, a pair of jeans on but unbuttoned, the bandages around his torso stark white against his skin. He was clutching a shirt in one hand and his ribs with the other, but he was upright and significantly cranky about it. “What the hell?” he gritted out. “What is wrong with you?”

“I like making you miserable,” Clint explained. “But this is Natasha's fault.”

“I like making you miserable, too,” Natasha said, but her eyes flicked over him, sharp and bright, taking careful measure. A tension that Clint was familiar with bled out of her shoulders. 

Steve stumbled out a step after Tony, desperately trying to put his clothes back in order. It was a losing battle; he was an absolute mess. “What's happening?” he asked, trying to tuck in his shirt without being completely obvious about it. Natasha reached up and smoothed his hair back into place with an quick flick of her hand. He gave her a grateful look.

“We need alien control in the lobby,” Coulson told Tony, who was jerking a hand through his own disordered curls. “There is an impromptu dance party.”

“Beyonce?” Tony asked.

“Yes,” Natasha told him.

“Fuck. Knew I shouldn't have taught them that.”

“Wait, how do you know that?” Clint asked, laughing. “You- You taught-”

“Shut up now.” Tony was jerking his shirt on over his head. “Or I will make you regret it.”

“No, seriously. Really. You know-” Clint grinned at him. “Does this have anything to do with the bright red bikini briefs you were wearing when we brought you in?”

“I do not want to discuss this now.”

“Your fly is down,” Coulson whispered to Steve, who was so red that he looked ready to spontaneously combust.

“This is a nightmare, this is the actual script of a nightmare, the only thing that could make it worse would be Fury just hanging around to give running commentary on my technique,” Tony gritted out. “There is nothing-”

“FRIENDS!”

Everyone froze. Tony sighed. “Well, the addition of Thor and an alien wearing tea cozies, that's... That's not something I was expecting right now. That's... That's a new thing. A new hell.”

“Be not concerned! We have made one for you as well!” Thor plopped the red and yellow knit hat on Tony's head. Tony made a face that indicated that he was pretending none of this was happening. Steve had a hand clamped over his mouth, and a suspicious sound was still audible. Slowly, Tony turned in his direction, his gaze cold and stony. 

Steve held it together. Clint wasn't sure how; he didn't even bother trying. Laughing, he ducked a halfhearted punch from Tony and retreated to the other side of Coulson's body. Phil just crossed his arms and gave Tony a look.

Thor laughed out loud because why the hell not? It was just what Thor did. He laughed when he felt like it.

It made it really hard to hate the guy.

“Fine. Let's just-” Tony took a deep breath. “Let's just deal with this.”

“Better you than me,” Clint said.

“Oh, it's so cute that you think that you're not coming.”

Clint shrugged. “If I go down there, I'm going to teach them some new moves. Since everyone knows you can't dance, Stark.”

“I missed you all. I do not know why. But for some reason, I missed you idiots.”

*

“So, just out of curiosity, how long am I going to have to put up with this?” Tony grumbled from his seat in the middle of the limo's bench seat. He slumped low, a headache pounding at his temples, wishing that he could have access to something of a medicinal nature. Pills or booze, he didn't care which.

What he got instead was the gentle, firm pressure of Steve's hand on the back of his neck. He leaned into the touch, ignoring just how humiliating the whole thing was. “Not much longer. We're almost home,” he said, his smile sympathetic.

“Not the-” Tony waved a hand at the hovering presense of the rest of the team. “Are you guys going to follow me around all the time now? Seriously? I will punch someone.”

From his other side, Bruce chuckled. His shoulder was braced against Tony's, but he was watching the windows. Natasha and Clint weren't even pretending to do anything other than watching for ninjas or kidnappers or some shit, Natasha with her pistols out and ready, Clint with an arrow strung on his bow. Coulson was up front with Happy, who was making his concern felt by driving defensively.

Very defensively.

“If you take another unnecessary turn, I will hit you with something,” Tony yelled. “There's no one following us. Other than Thor! Thor is following us, and he knows where we live, so good luck shaking him, we've tried, he's remarkably stubborn!” Thor had decided to take the aerial route home, but he had cast a sad-eyed look at the limo even as he was stating his intentions. He loved limos. 

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” Happy said, more out of force of habit than out of any desire to listen to or obey a single word that came out of Tony's mouth.

“Knew this would happen,” Tony mumbled to himself. “Get kidnapped one little time, and suddenly everyone is like, 'you can't take care of yourself, we better follow you around and protect you from everything because you are clearly so-'” The words broke off on a strangled groan as Steve started to rub the back of his neck.

“That's very effective,” Natasha said, her faint smile audible in her voice even though she didn't bother to look back at them. “Remember that, please.”

“I will.” Steve was smiling down at Tony, who was leaning into his touch with a complete lack of shame. Shame was for losers and people who were not getting neck massages from Captain America. Tony closed his eyes and tried not to moan.

That would just be unprofessional.

In his defense, it had been a long day. Injuries. Aliens. Molesting Steve in SHIELD medical. Reassuring Pepper that he was alive and well and ignoring the way she alternately sobbed and yelled. Calling Rhodey and putting up with the lecture of a lifetime, because Rhodey was even more of a mother hen than Pepper. Dealing with Fury. Checking on Harris, who was the only one of Hydra's captive scientiests not enthusiastically reading briefing packets and HR handbooks. Dealing with Hill. Dealing with aliens.

Yeah, he was going to stop thinking about that and go back to the 'molesting Steve' line item. He liked that one.

“We're here,” Steve said, and Tony struggled to raise his head. As promised, they were pulling into the unground parking garage beneath Avengers Tower, Thor shooting through the closing doors right behind them. He landed on the roof and rode the rest of the way in, his laughter audible even through the metal.

“Good,” Tony managed. “Excellent. Whatever. Can I go to bed now?”

“Not just yet,” Coulson said. “I hate to use your least favorite word, but-”

“But you will. With gusto. I don't want to be debriefed, but I suppose that makes no nevermind to anyone.” Tony yawned. “Let's do this. Happy, thank you, excellent work as always.” 

He glanced back, grinning at Tony. “Ms. Potts'll be here in the morning, she had some late meetings in California and will be taking the red-eye.”

“And Col. Rhodes will be here by noon; Director Fury pulled some strings with the Air Force to get him a brief leave.” Steve smiled at Tony. “Family grounds.”

“Wonderful. More hovering.” Tony sighed as the limo emptied, Natasha taking Thor's proferred hand to slide out the door. Tony would've said something snarky about her acting like a lady, but Steve's hand on the small of his back was awfully nice as he stumbled out into the garage. Everyone was polite enough, or had the proper amount of self-preservation, not to bring it up.

Tony decided not to bring up the way that they surrounded him for the quick trip to the elevator. “Jarvis,” he said, as they stepped in. “Can you do me a favor and order like, I don't know, fifty pizzas.”

“That seems excessive, sir, unless you expect additional visitors,” Jarvis pointed out. “And might I say, welcome home, sir.”

“Thank you! I missed you, too, you ol' disembodied prig,” Tony said, grinning up at the camera. “Fine. Twenty-five pizzas.”

“How about ten, Jarvis?” Steve said, his hand still firmly resting on Tony's back. “Usual ratios?”

“Two extra cheese, one veggie delight, three meat lovers combo, one Hawaiian, two pepperoni, and one white pie,” Jarvis recited. “One large Caesar salad, extra croutons, extra cheese, two antipastos and a mixed garden salad, hold the onions.”

“Throw like, three orders of garlic bread on there,” Tony said, and he absolutely was not leaning back into Steve, that would just be unacceptable. Comfortable, though. “And pull the trigger. Thanks, buddy.” Tony sucked in a breath. “We're going to the workshop.”

He saw the heads turn, the looks exchanged, but no one objected, no one said a word. Tony sucked in a long, careful breath, and lead the way down. 

The lights flickered on as he crossed the threshold, and the bots looked up from their charging stations. “Daddy's home!” he called, moving a little easier now, because he the meds were kicking in, and the adrenaline was pushing through his veins. He paused, just for a second, to check his idiotic lab assistants, and limped his way back over to the broad couch on one end of the workshop.

Tony collapsed onto the couch with a sigh of relief. “Couch. I love you, couch. I love you so much, you are my favorite piece of furniture, and I love you.”

“Do you want us to leave you two alone?” Bruce asked, and because it was Bruce, Tony resisted the urge to flip him off. 

“I'd appreciate that,” Tony said, rolling over and pushing himself upright somehow. “But I suspect that you won't. So. Have a seat. Let's fucking, I don't know, let's debrief or something. There's pizza coming at some point.”

“Wouldn't it be more comfortable up in the living room?” Coulson asked, but he took a seat at the other end of the couch. Natasha perched on the arm next to him, and Clint sprawled out to drape himself over Coulson's lap. Bruce took a seat in a nearby arm chair, curling his legs up under him. Thor just dropped down to sit on the coffee table, setting Mjolnir next to him. 

And Steve took a seat next to Tony, and that was nice. That was very nice.

He took a deep breath. “So. I brought something very-” He winced. “Something very questionable back from Bartonia. Sorry about that.”

“It was a weapon?” Natasha asked.

Tony leaned against Steve's shoulder. “Not in the way you mean. They meant it as a way to make contact.”

His eyes closed. “It was a puzzle. To begin with, you need to understand, it was a puzzle. I can't really tell you about the process. I didn't even think about it. But opening it was this odd puzzle. I didn't have to think about it, I wasn't supposed to. It was a test.”

“A test of what?” Coulson asked.

“Me. My intellectual ability. It wasn't a test of my knowledge, or the information I was privy to. It was testing my ability to think, to adapt, to change and think and puzzle. Because opening it changed things. Changed me. They had something to offer, and they were looking for someone to offer it to. I don't understand how it works, if it's biological or mechanical, or fuck it, magical.” He paused. “I don't understand, because I closed it before it finished sinking into me. I interrupted the process. Put the evils of the world back in Pandora's box.”

Steve rubbed a hand over his back. “Tony, what was it? What did it do?”

Tony considered the ceiling. “Okay. This is- This is the only way I can explain it.” He sat forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “Imagine you were presented with a clock. Jarvis, can you give me a school house style clock? Big, round, white, black numbers-” He waited until the holographic image came into view. “Thanks. Imagine you were dropped into a foreign environment. Never seen one of these suckers before. 

“By simple observation and deduction, you can figure out that every two full rotations of the big stick, a celestial day goes by. You might figure out by the arrival and departure of people how to determine, how to predict their movements. You could come to realize that this is an item used to measure the passage of time. You might even be able to understand that the markings correspond to numbers.”

Tony leaned his chin on his folded hands. “You could use this item, you could understand its purpose.” He stared at it. “When I opened that box, something happened to me, to my brain. I didn't understand. I comprehended. I could see the inner workings, the mathematics of gears and metals and plastics and glass. I could break it down, I could improve it, I could see the power supply and the wires and the circuitry. I could see the HISTORY of the object, I could almost see the future, I could almost move the hands with a thought. I could comprehend.”

He scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “I opened it, and I might have gone a little crazy. For a second, a split second, I went, well, mad. For a split second, I could not only use everything that was in that room with us, but I could improve upon them. I could make them better. I could shift the very course of human knowledge, and it was so real, so easy that I could taste it.”

Tony's eyes closed. “Of course, it was pretty much like giving a stone age man a rocket launcher. Even if he can fully comprehend the mechanism, he has no frame of reference for the potential for destruction. You might think you were giving him a gift, but he's far more likely to blow himself up, to kill his whole village, than he is to go out and take out the local mammoth population.

“So I could say to myself that I could control it, that I could use this, and the thought of whole world falling to ruin wasn't enough to convince me that it was a stupid ass idea.” He jerked his head towards Clint. “The idiot with the Roomba on his head was a different story.”

“I absolutely love how I'm the delicate, sheltered princess of this story,” Clint said, lounging with his head in Coulson's lap. Coulson rolled his eyes, but his fingers continued carding through the marksman's hair. Tony flipped him off, because flipping Clint off was totally fine. “No, seriously. This is awesome.” He folded his hands over his flat stomach and gave Tony a smarmy grin. “Please, continue explaining how you rejected the wisdom of the ancients, the greatest gift of an alien race, all for the love of me.”

“This is why no one likes you,” Tony said, his lips kicking up at the corners.

“It's more that I shoot people when I'm bored.”

“You need to stop that,” Phil told him.

“Not going to happen, sir.” Clint's grin was horrible and angelic at once.

“At least cover it up better.”

“That would take effort.” Clint closed his eyes, his features getting tight. “The Tessaract. Selvig said, what he learned from it was more than knowledge. It was truth.”

Tony paused, because Clint did not, absolutely did not talk about the time he spent with Loki's fingers embedded in his brain. “That's a good a way to explain it as any other.” He sucked in a breath. “I dropped it, and everything went gray and flat again. Everything I'd gained, I lost immediately, I think because it didn't have time to integrate with me. Or maybe it only works when you're holding the box. Whatever it is, whatever it was, it was gone. I could only remember the sensation of having known.”

He stared at nothing. “I couldn't leave it there. I knew SHIELD would strip mine the place, everything would end up coming back with them. I was certain, absolutely certain, that I could not allow this, this thing to fall into Fury's hands.” He gave a faint snort. “After all, what happened when he got a hold of the Tessaract?”

“So this thing,” Thor said, his voice quiet, “offered knowledge, offered power-”

“Without any sort of morality check. Yeah. The intent of the one who picked it up was... Immaterial. There was only the rush of something that was like getting a shot of heroin straight into the pleasure center of my brain. And what I did with that, with that knowledge, with that truth, the thing didn't care. It existed to teach me, to give me everything I wanted.”

“And you put it down,” Steve said, his voice quiet.

“Put it down, and took it home later,” Tony said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Let's not pretend I'm a hero here, I'm not. I'm just delusional. Convinced myself it was better in my hands than in Fury's.”

“So you've had it here for months?” Bruce asked. “And you haven't used it again?”

Tony tipped his chin at the shelf over his main bench. “No. Sat it right there. Didn't open it, didn't so much as touch it again.” He took a deep breath, and it made his ribs hurt, and he didn't care. “But I wasn't aware that they were watching me. Once it was activated, they were able to make contact with it. No audio, which may have contributed to them not being able to understand me. They had nothing to work with.”

“Watching,” Coulson said, his voice flat.

“Everything that happened in here since I brought it back. Yep.” Tony glanced around. “Who was wearing red bikini briefs in my workshop?” He stabbed a finger in Clint's direction. “I suspect you.”

“Okay, first of all? No. I don't even like being down here without full body armor, this place is crazy, it's like an AIM torture chamber but with better lighting, fewer yellow beekeeper outfits and more crazy ass robots. Yes. You have more crazy ass robots than AIM. There is no way, no goddamn way I'm taking off my pants down here.” 

Tony stared at him. “Oh. Oh, yeah, must've been... Huh.” He grinned. “That makes sense.” He leaned against Steve. “Storytime's over. I'm done. Let's go eat some pizza.”

“Tony?” Bruce asked, his voice quiet. “Did anything stay with you?”

Tony stood. “Guess we'll find out, won't we?” he asked. “It's done. It's gone. Right? We'll see what happens now.” He gave them a faint smile. “Pizza. I'm not kidding.”

There were glances exchanged. Faces made. But everyone stood. Headed for the elevator. Talking. Joking. Being normal. Being just like he remembered. He crossed to his workbench to look up at the shelf as the door closed behind them.

“Tony?”

He leaned back as Steve came up behind him. He wasn't surprised when Steve wrapped an easy arm around his waist. “It's fine. Tell me it's fine. Tell me it's gone.”

“It's fine,” Steve said, and after a second of hesitation, he brushed a kiss against Tony's hair. “It's gone. It's fine. They came and took it. Jarvis told us they did. It's gone.”

Tony stared up at the shelf. At the box that was still sitting there. Still right where he'd left it. He closed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “Let's go. Pizza. I got you your favorite.”

“Maybe we can do a movie tonight?” Steve said. “I don't want-” He paused. “Sometimes we fall asleep on the couch,” he said. “When it's late. And we're tired.”

“Yeah. That's nice, isn't it?” Tony leaned back against his chest, closed his eyes. “Let's go give it a try. I'm... Tired.” And sleeping next to Steve sounded like a damn good idea right now.

“Tony?”

“Yeah?”

“I'm glad you're home.”

Tony grinned at him, something painful and tight and horrible in his chest loosening and falling away. “Me, too. I missed you.”

Steve grinned back at him, and his hand found Tony's, lacing their fingers together, and that was just pathetic, that was like high school shit there, and Tony was light years ahead of Steve when it came to experience and needs and sex, and this was just stupid. Holding hands like lovers in wartime, and it was not the forties any more, this was stupid.

Tony folded his hand into Steve's. Because yeah. This was better. This was fine. This was Steve. There was a possiblity he was dating an old-fashioned guy.

“I don't think I'll ever understand you,” Tony said to him.

“That's only fair,” Steve said, grinning at him. “You're a constant source of confusion and consternation to me, too. And you're smarter than me, so you've got an advantage.”

“Sometimes I wonder about that,” Tony said. 

“Tony?” 

“Yeah?” 

“What did you mean by 'the fifth reason?'”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done it's done it's done it's done it's done it's done.
> 
> PLOT YOU ARE MY ARCH-NEMESIS AND I DISLIKE YOU. YOU ARE NOT INVITED TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY. The threads here, and some others you may or may not have spotted will be picked up in my next long plot fic. It will be a while before I do that. Mostly, right now, I want to forget plot EXISTS.
> 
> This series is not done. It'll continue, because I am still amused by these people. The next piece will not be a plotty nightmare, it will be Tony and Steve's first date. The Avengers will interfere, because they are nosy bitches. IT WILL GO SO WELL. 
> 
> Thank you for your kindness and your comments. I'm honored that so many people have taken the time to read this foolishness. I'm forever grateful for the time people take to do so much as say hi, the process of writing and posting is occasionally nerve wracking for me, because I am not comfortable with this stuff.
> 
> Thank you. Thank you so much. 8)

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